換換口味團團轉。數碼式的日常。黎肖像找來了兩個有關著自己在房裡的經驗的學生們的作業，借此對隔離的狀態發出另一種的迴響。A chance game, Linda Lai found, in two of her students’ video exercises, varied episodes of contemplating “being as doing” in a room of confinement. Quarantine journal 3…
**updated 9:58am (HKT), 2021.10.26
換換口味團團轉。數碼式的日常。
有朋友回應我的「手記01」，說藝術創作的人對應隔離總有他們獨特的出路。我在學生們的作業中找到了幾個「關在房間裡」的錄像。輕鬆，帶點哀愁，有點無奈，卻正面、有活力。感謝她們讓我在隔離時在這裡分享她們的作品，借作對隔離的迴響。
A change of taste, a change of direction. Digital normal.
A friend responded to my first quarantine journal, noting that in face of confinement, artists seem to have their ways of coping. Art is their unique outlet.
With the permission of my students, I want to share a few videos about being confined in a room. They started out as video exercises in response to an assignment I gave, “performing my ‘selves’ through time” …
| Kaman Cheng 鄭嘉雯《隔離時》Quarantine Time, 2m 51s, shared 16 Sep 2021
Kaman Cheng returned to HK from the US and was subject to a 21-day quarantine before I started mine. For three weeks, she met us in class from her hotel room. I like the mix of naturalism and her materialist contemplation of time and space, thickened by her tool-driven reproduction of selves and reality.
She wrote 她說…
Light Flashes, Time Passes. 一瞥浮光，恍如隔世。
Why do we remember the past and not the future? 為甚麼我們記住的是過去而不是未來？
Do we exist in time, or does time exist in us? 我們存在於時間之中，還是時間存在於我們之中？
What does it mean to say that time passes? 到底甚麼是時間的流逝？
Because of the light, there is time. 因為光，所以有了時間。
Camera is a time machine. 相機猶如時光機。
Light flashes, time passes. 一瞥浮光，恍如隔世。
— inspired by a theoretical physicist Carlo Rovelli’s writing on time 靈感來自理論物理學家卡洛·羅威利對時間的書寫
| Kaman Cheng 鄭嘉雯:《隔離線》Quarantine Line, 2m 43s, first shared 22 Sep 2021
Basic stop-motion unfolds a creative process during confinement. Is the video a visual summary of a thoughtful response to quarantine, or is it a moment-to-moment unfolding of her real-time performance of her personhood at work? Whatever it means to us, the work shows her to be an optimistic agent capable of making full use of her limited resources.
她寫道 She wrote:
在隔離時，很多人問我：有什麼東西可以做？會不會很沉悶？在這房間裏，我可以做任何事情。 我開始自己跟自己說話、自娛自樂。
我想起紅線，它就這樣隨意地、突然地出現在我腦海。「你不會明確知道甚麼行為是容許的，沒有一條紅線，紅線才可無處不在。」
意識好像一條連綿不盡的線，我們根據不同的經驗、線索，去作出不同決定，意識看沒有關聯，往往有踪可尋。
十八世紀時，有個現象是做不成畫家，所以去當攝影師； 我覺得很怪，所以我嘗試當一個畫家，再成為一個攝影師。
During the quarantine, many people ask me: what can you do? Is it boring? I can do anything in the room. And I started to talk to myself and amuse myself in my quarantine time.
A red line appeared on my mind suddenly. We won’t know what kind of behaviour is allowed. “Without a clear line, the line can appear nowhere but also anywhere.”
Consciousness is like an endless line. We make different decisions based on different experiences. There may seem to be no connection between these acts, but there are cues.
In the 18th century, there was a weird phenomenon that people who couldn’t become a painter turned to be a photographer. And now, I tried to be a painter and thus a photographer.
+++ +++ +++
Then I found Rachel Chan’s video, also inside a room. Although it was not a quarantine situation, I found her self-directed doings/beings inspiration. 然後錄像作業中出現了陳慧卓的跳脫的個人素描。雖然她不用隔離，在她的房子裡，她自由自在，好像有不會窮盡的玩意。
| Rachel Chan 陳慧卓：（無題）(untitled), 3m 34s, completed 30 Sep 2021
This is a neat camera study articulating the intensity of presence. I like the open-endedness of the piece. It is an expressive portrait with great precision in camera work and sight-and-sound organization. I like especially how a very lively “Rachel” suddenly emerges out of great stillness and subdued imaging. It is free and playful. The video below is an extension of an earlier exercise she did in my class.
She wrote…
⽇落至夜晚的過程⼤概半⼩時多。我⽤了三天來捕捉完整的這個過程，並紀錄這陣⼦的我及907號房 間。臨近秋季，夜幕低垂的時間好像⼀天比⼀天早。我在這裏所存在過的痕跡，建構了我的空間， 時間亦漸漸緩慢下來。同樣在907號房間裏，我繼續探索這個空間。於空間裏各種聲⾳的交錯、來來去去的傢俬佈局、我的 活動痕跡，每⼈有意無意地建構⼀個不知時⽇，屬於⾃⼰的空間。
The process from sunset to night takes about half an hour. I spent three days to capture the whole process, and recorded myself in Room 907. Season changing, nightfall seems to be getting earlier day by day. My existence in this room structures my space, and time seems to be slowing down, gradually.
Still in Room 907, I continued to explore this space. Overlaid sounds, certain furniture re-arrangements and the insertion of my activities. Everyone seems to constructing her own space, not always being aware of time.
To read the full journal series: Linda Lai’s quarantine journal […]
