**feature image: a still from Sean Weingarten’s past waves Meditarranean
The 2021 version of Micro Narratives has its own character. It has been backed up by more historical study of the various avant-gardes or peak moments of experimentation that have formed the “official discourse” in film history text books. The admiration of achievement has then become the object of challenge: what are the specific contexts and conventions we are tackling? By and large following the precepts of a “materialist cinema,” we continue to emphasize human-tool co-agency, which results in a kind of agential realism — our being there at a specific moment assisted by recording and composing tools to enact our documentary impulse.
Micro Narratives 2021: Layered Vision 微敘事2021《層層看》
Floating Projects | 11 December 2021, 6-8pm
SCREENING LIST
LIVING DILIGENTLY: 3 episodes of dream-falling by Chan Sheung-fung
running time: 7m24s
Chan Sheung-fung 陳尚豊 | CrewS
2021.12 | 1m41s
Screws may be regarded as a tiny component in a giant machine, but at the same time, it also
acts as a significant and essential component. In this work, I also imagine screws to be myself and everyone in the world. Like a screw, I work hard day and night with no rest time; my own aim of existing is to ensure the machine is working regularly. I am part of a crew’s teamwork just like in a machine there are hundreds to thousands of “me” – thus the work’s title CrewS.
Chan Sheung-fung 陳尚豊 | Into the Unknown
2021.12 | 2m11s
I apply a marching anthem from the Soviet Union to my video footage, which is about someone travelling from a destination to another randomly, plus and some found online video footage. The wandering journey is fantastical, adventurous and exciting. In this way, I perform my consciousness: there was no designated camera technique, and I was in a messy and dizzy situation while chasing a bus with a friend. Besides, I always want to make a video about memes. … As a result, my video is like me falling into a dream, achieved by random shots of the unexpected and what is accidental. I would like to take my audiences on an unexpected and fascinating trip.
Chan Sheung-fung 陳尚豊 | Corner 角落
2021.12 | 3m42s
「角落」(corner) means a place or angle where two planes or lines meet. In Chinese, it also refers to a place where people will hide physically and emotionally. In this video, I show snapshots of people who are sitting alone “in a corner” in the city. A corner can also mean distinct characteristics and flaws that may hurt others and, therefore, is something we should avoid. This work has been inspired by Robert Cahen’s Glimpse and Hong Kong Song, especially the way he uses still images in video, his color and sound editing, and his unique approach to transitions, which deploys synthesizers and re-coloring. In my video, I adopt some of Cahen’s techniques, and want to “broaden” the space of the corners through prolonging the duration of a shot.
TWO EPISODES OF A NEAR IMMIGRANT Rachel W.C. Chan
Rachel Chan: Long Distance (video still)
Rachel Wai-cheuk Chan 陳慧卓 | Long Distance 長距離 : a transmedia study of Hollis Frampton
2021.12 | 7m
With time passing, my memories of visiting my family members in the UK are gradually hidden deep in my heart. Since 2017, my family split into two places. It was not until the summer of 2019 that I visited folks in the UK for the first time after they immigrated. I always thought that I could go there again soon. I look for what is in between photographs and words to rescue my memories of all sorts — longings from the past in the future, all put in a suitcase.
《長距離：與 Hollis Frampton的跨媒鑽研》這個習作中，隨著時間的洗禮，我在英國的回憶漸漸被藏於⼼深處。從2017年起，家庭分隔兩地。2019年夏天，我 第⼀次探望移民到英國的家⼈。我⼀直以為很快便可以再去。相⽚及⽂字使⼈徘徊在記憶與過去之間，在英國的時光當刻正被其他記憶疊過⽽遺忘。我於未來中背負種種過去的記憶及思念，把⼀切 收在⼀個⾏李箱裡。
Rachel Wai-cheuk Chan 陳慧卓 | Room 1410
2021.12 | 8m50s
“Time” in Room 1410 seemed to have stopped at some point in the past. Room 1410 is a record of the space and journey about home, articulated in one long take highlighting spatial changes. The set-ups in the house are half staged and half natural documentation to preserve a sense of realism. Melodies played on a piano run through the entire video to parallel the timeline of “me.” The sound narrative comprises of scattered sound records from my visit to UK a few years ago, occasionally backing up other sounds. The work is my attempt to restore the past of this space, to record the current situation and to anticipate the future. My family has been split into two places since 2017: whereas my family members reside in the UK, I have been living alone in Hong Kong during the whole period, and the Room 1410 is about to be sold. What is the nature of home, and what about the relationship between “me” and the space? Is a house without a family a home? The clock on the wall has stopped running, the doorbell is broken, the TV also breaks down, the lamp in the living room is broken. The timeline of the space stops, but the timeline of “me” keeps moving forward without notice.
從某個時間點開始，1410室的時間似是停⽌了。《1410室》是⼀個關於家的空間紀錄及旅程。作品以⼀鏡到底及空間變化展現1410室內時間的流逝，並以半紀錄的形式設定屋內空間佈局，保留家的寫實感覺。鋼琴的旋律貫穿整個錄像與「我」的時間線，我收集了數年前到英國零零散散的聲⾳記錄、間中回到畫⾯的聲⾳，建構⼀段聲⾳敍事。我嘗試還原這個空間的過去，記錄現況及預想未來。 家⼈由2017年分隔兩地，到現在這段時間我獨⾃居住，以及1410室將要出售。我思考家的本質及「我」與空間的關係。沒有家⼈的住宅是家嗎？牆上的鐘停⽌轉動，⾨鐘壞了，電視機壞了，客廳燈壞了，空間的時間線停⽌了，「我」的時間線卻⼀直悄悄前進。
Shine Chai OUT OF HER COMFORT ZONE
Shine Chai: Non-sense (video still)
Shine Jing-hoong Chai 蔡沁紘 | Non-Sense
2021.12 |11m05s
I made this work, motivated by the discovery that a strong work is not just about having a good sequence of events that amount to a story, but that a smooth linkage between frames against a clear timeline could also make a lot of sense. In this semester, I started with learning the power of montage to process to layering [editor’s note: “image clustering” which does not rely on the notion of a shot-to-shot progression]. I took the bold step of creating a whole video in which a time line is filled with image layers.
Similar to my previous work Journey without destination, I allow non-sense to run as it is. If there’s any sense, it is that of editing or composing itself. Words, from automatic writings, are visual elements, meant to incite the audience to enjoy the same free-flowing shuffling. It is my intention that viewers could feel comfortable with losing track of the many layers of images and take liberty to shifting focus from element to element. Audio comprises of different music tracks repeated and re-edited to go with the visual track. I have also carefully assembled a variety of media in my video – from written words, continuous coloring, topping up an image with different clips and so on in order that they all clash. At the back of my mind are Peter Greenaway, Zbigniew Rybczynski and many other artists, whose works are comfortable with the uncomfortable.
SOUND IMAGE, TIME IMAGE
12m27s
Jonathan Chan: Seesaw (video still)
Jonathan Mong-sum Chan 陳望心 | Seesaw
2021.11 | 7m08s
This is a video that experiments with “syncing events.” Video is also used as a means to rewind the nature and reality. I compare and juxtapose images and sound fragments as objectiles. This work is hugely inspired by Peter Kubelka’s theory on metaphoric cinema, by which he breaks free from the norms of sound-image synchronization, in order that I may expand the communication power of sound and image.
Cindy Tsz-yan Hui 許紫昕 | Exercise 4
2021.12 | 5m19s
I notice how other artists create their videos with limited resources, which gives me the incentive to explore editing more intensely, and to use my camera more innovatively. In this work, I deliberately limited myself to just use my iPhone11. Having noticed this phone cannot do smooth manual focus and aperture change, I want to play with the unexpected. … As usual, I shot the things around me as I was walking. This way, I could get a lot of long takes for my montage game. The final version of this contains footage of previous works I made in this semester, whereby the sky and light remain the motif. The long takes are also the evidence of my habit of looking at some sceneries for a long time.
DOCUMENTING WHAT IS LEFT OUT AND WHAT IS REDUCED
13 minutes
Sean Weingarten: more samples (video still)
Sean W.F. Weingarten | more samples
2021.10 | 3m47s
more samples aims to adapt and refine, but also dissolve and question, the rules set in its prefixed work titled samples, In the process of which I move away from approaching identity via questioning physicality/actuality to focusing on sculpting a physical object through video. I remain interested in playing with the concept of documentary whereby actuality seems only to exist on a representational level. Futile it may be, my effort is to see what could be there situated between representation and reality. My work shows video’s power in visualizing simultaneity of experience and repetition, which also results in the examination of how our attention and consciousness operate. The relation between reality and representation is also central to my interest in the documentary approach. I have chosen to fragmentize the work and the different stages of the creative process through editing, as opposed to the constructed single long take in samples. Lastly I wanted to highlight the nature and implied value of things. In this work, I have chosen clay, a material almost exclusively used for sculpting, modeling and representing while its inherent existence is often ignored. This potentially circles back to the question of identity; showing clay as what it is or showing me as who I am are both approaches that – in their most extreme form – would necessitate a reduction of (re)presentation and subjectivity, which is, although an interesting thought, frankly impossible in the context of artistic work.
Sean W.F. Weingarten | The Primary Function of a Lift CCTV
2021.12 | 8m42s
In the last of my conceptual video series, I turn to ask what is being left behind or left out, in the primary function of a lift CCTV. Concerned with and yet adopting a reductive approach, I push for extreme abstraction until only singular elements are left over. Step by step the work becomes exceedingly excluding, what comes out of the source material — the recording of a public CCTV screen showing the inside of an elevator alternating between two levels is a vertical (thick) narrative imagery comprising of multiple layers of videos suggesting users entering and exitin the elevator. The elevators interior is limited space of confinement, impregnated with simultaneous differences. Like my other works, I seek to go beyond film/video’s normalized structure and, specifically, my method diminishes the complexity of the initial image by reducing it to only one dimension (the vertical line). The CCTV cameras I studied are showing four different views — from one of the ceiling corners, the up and down movement of the elevator and the opening and closing of its doors that falls onto the x-axis of the screen – just forming a visual structure for my study. The audio consists of manipulated recordings of elevator rides. Through the use of digital bit reduction, delay and a vocoder, the fundamental methods of reducing the source material and its overlaying are adapted from the visual and applied to the tonal level. The work is also a way to contemplate the visual structure of video surveillance, especially its potential for continuous documentation. But only specific aspects are of value: detailedness and uniqueness. … … … Consequently the primary function of a lift CCTV reduces the recording’s visual information and generates simultaneity through overlay. The process of reduction and compression shifts CCTV’s primary function from identification to the erasure of differences – even when there is no loss of the original visual material, it turns traits to patterns, rhythms and uniform behavior. Therefore the manipulation of the source material questions the normalized conception of film as a medium in the context of video surveillance.
I WANT MY WORKS TO CONNECT…: 2 videos by Tang Ka-hei
12m34s
Tang Ka-hei: Under the Firmament (video still)
TANG Ka-hei 鄧家希 | This Story Has No End
2021.11 | 7m34s
I consider this work a “time-image” (Deleuze). It expresses my perception of time beyond that of measurable units. Time measurement has been important because it conveniences social order, but it does not really correspond to our sense of existence. I feel that when we talk about time, we are in fact thinking about space – it is our “acknowledgement of time” rather than adequate description of time through language. In this video, I raise questions about time but I am not providing an answer. You may treat it as an illusion, a dream or whatever you like, and it does not matter at all. My video foregrounds subjectivity, and I want to express that time can only be perceptualized but not told.
TANG Ka-hei 鄧家希 | Under the Firmament
2021.12 | 5m
I want to express the absurdity I and many have experienced in Hong Kong in the last few years. I believe my work is a bridge that connects people who care about justice. I also want it to be a kind of support – something that would ease the shared pain and sorrow, especially of those who have already emigrated.
I am committed to making more artworks like this piece: I have heard a saying that art is the highest form of hope. That would be my personal response to my being I born into such an era and into this city. I would still to grasp every opportunity to present my work even in face of censorship. I would like to work in cinema, whether it’s mainstream or not.
GAMING
15m33s
Cheng Kaman 鄭嘉雯 | 迷人 Pink Lady: a transmedia study of Hollis Frampton
2021.11 | 9m
This work dialogues with Hollis Frampton’s Nostalgia (1971), in which he performs the burning of 13 photographs from his early creative period in front of the camera. As the photos turn to ash one by one, a voice-over narrates the content of an image except that it is that of another one in the sequence that we are not looking at. Cheng’s Pink Lady aims to bring back this demand on the viewers’ effort to “remember” the images they have seen or are looking at. Pink Lady is then a work about expectation – that which builds on objects as imageries, metaphors, visual icons and how they loosely bring together some kind of a story. (Editor’s Notes)
Yip Thrum Ring: blue (video still)
YIP Thrum Ring 葉晉榮 | blue
2021.12 | 2m04s
A series of places visited every day strung together for a different sort of attentiveness. …
blue is about delimiting vision using a tighter aspect ratio than normal. The tint of blue dropping off is like the X factor of everyone’s life. What viewers see is not all of what they are seeing. I tried to maintain a mundane and but a constantly changing atmosphere.
TSOI Cho-yi 蔡祖彝 | Focus and the Big Picture
2021.12 | 4m29s
Every object in the road has its beautiful story, and these roads deserve more attention on their history.
In this video, I invite the audience to discover this corner of Hong Kong as the “masks” I apply take them step by step. I would like to offer an open question to the audience with my video which is open-ended.
WANDERING
10 minutes
Tsang Yu-ting 曾裕婷 | Answer
2021.12 | 5m19s
答案是什麼？What is the answer?
什麼是答案？What is an answer?
「有言無文，有文無相，有相無文」是弘揚佛法的三個階段。”Words that don’t amount to writing, writing that has no face, a face that bears no writing” – these are the three phases of one kind of Buddhism.
我在讀有關的文章時，內心一直有個問題：「到底我們是如何表達自我呢？」When reading these words, a question rises, “How after all do we express our ‘self’?”
有了影像，有了聲音，有了文字，這樣就可以表達到自己嗎？Let there be images, let there be sounds, let there be writings… — is this all it takes?
把影像都抹走，所有東西都簡化， What if all images are erased, what if all things are simplified, …
只剩下模糊的記憶，模糊的聲音，so that all that’s left is blurry memories, blurry sounds…
你最深刻的，便是我想傳達給你的。 What grabs you most is nothing more than what I want to pass on to you.
Marco Cheung 張明健 | I Look Back at Things, Like Mirrors Facing Each Other
2021.10 | 2m59s
I point my camera to the cameras that point at me every day in order that that I can feel more equal about this relationship of voyeurism that the government gives me.
Lam Yuen-ting 林婉婷 | My Town
2021.12 | 1m29s
Some of my observation and emotions for my town.
Is it dying?
Or is it just me hanging in there?
Marco Cheung: I Looked Back at Things… (video still)
End of program | total running time: 98 minutes
