Narrative pictograms’ view on two kinds of time and space — the brothel as chronotope, timeless space (Flowers of Shanghai), and nested realities in the virtual worlds of the mind as dreamwork (Inception) — presented at Ventriloquists…Thinking Narratively, 4-19 July 2020. 如果敘事法的性質是時空的呈現以至再組織，進而擴展我們對存在的認知，那麼敘述圖形是另一種實驗性的創作，就是動用跨媒的資源去尋找語言或純影音未能盡興的展陳。《潛行凶間》和《海上花》是兩個截然不同的時空構圖；前者踏進夢的潛意識的禁地，化之為慾望的戲劇舞台，後者則專注現象學的濃密經營，時間一點一滴，一舉手一投足，吃喝閒話家常，紛陳世事，時間停留在這裡、此刻，摺疊勾連，並不向前。
Feature image: Chan Yan-yu’s narrative pictogram (2020) for Inception (2010), not in the exhibition
+ + + +
YANG Long-lam, Markus: Inception, a pictogram
A narrative pictogram on Christopher Nolan’s Inception (2010), 3 x 50x50cm foam board plus poster for legend and text
The 3-part pictogram series depicts the story of the movie Inception (2010) in various perspectives.
Part A. It represents the timeline of the story. The pictogram’s design is like a dart board. Each ring layer holds a mission statement. Each color line represents a team member’s journey. If the path occupies the full width of a layer, the character is hosting the dream level, that is, being in-charge to protect and wake up other team members.
Part B. This graph aims to emphasize the three-structure and the character’s arc in a traditional storytelling sense. The path of the characters represents their journey of reconciliation to themselves. The spinning tops represent the progress of Cobb’s reconciliation to himself. The more the red region, the more completion of the progress goes.
Part C. This graph depicts the methodology of world-building in Inception. The patterns on the blocks are mazes. This movie shows an interesting way to build a world with infinite possibilities, even though the characters are still bound by the rules.
+ + + +
Hou Hsiao-hsien’s Flowers of Shanghai 侯孝賢 《海上花》(1998)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSay4xFS_LY (Chinese subtitles only)
RESEARCH KEYWORDS: Montage; process-oriented narration; time-image (time as space; thickness of a moment); timelessness; phenomenological details (textures of everydayness, everyday processes, social etiquette, relational and institutional norms of a place)
+ + + +
TY Lok-yi, Scarlett: THE FOLDING SCREEN
A pictogram on Hou Hsiao-hsien’s Flowers of Shanghai 侯孝賢 《海上花》(1998), on wall 40x160cm with legend on an additional poster
THE FOLDING SCREEN is a pictogram of Hou Hsiao-hsien’s Flowers of Shanghai. The landscape in my work forms a map that corresponds to the movie’s slow rhythm from start to end as if a painting is unfolding in front of the audiences. The dark, liquid flow pattern in the background represents the intrigue beneath the surface and the depressive undertone of the film. The relationship of the main characters in it is just like smoke in the painting, their relation is illusory but entangled, complex but weak. As Eileen Chang claims, the women at that time are just like the embroidery on the folding screen, exquisite and glamourous but also trapped. They are captured by poetic visuals, unfolding their story softly to the viewer.The film is just like the folding screen capture the women with poetic beautiful visual, unfolding the story softly to the viewer. But the characters on the folding screen can never leave their delicate dwelling place, the folding screen, and only live elegantly inside this little space.
Legend of the map
