“And then… and then…” and more … wavering thought paths… Blocked. Light flashes, time passes. During the quarantine… Reach out. Enter 2022 with a peephole of love. The forbidden zone? Accept forgetting as well as remembering… #4 D-Normal/V-Essay online vide zine, collected and edited by Linda Lai.「然後 …，然後 …，接著 …，於是 …」被阻擋著。光閃爍著，時間過去了。隔離期間…。伸手接觸。進入2022年，進入窺洞裡的愛情。禁區？接受忘記，同時接受還記起。… 黎肖嫻蒐集彙編，《平地數碼》網上錄像誌第4期。
*feature image: courtesy of artist Zimu Zhang (video still)
**Chinese summary by Linda Lai
I. Quarantine: Close Generative Systems 隔離：向內衍生的系統
Accept Forgetting, as well as Remembering (Cici Wu)
This video is the artist’s mourning of the recent changes in her life. It is also a mark on the memory of a special transitional space, across and connecting two places. In this transitional space, she reflects on time and selfhood. The video features the artist walking in the East Broadway Mall, Chinatown, New York, which was founded in the 80s and is at risk of shutting down for good. It ends with a view from Hong Kong Regal Airport Hotel in December 2021. 為變動的一切作出哀悼，記憶浮游於過渡中的過渡。紐約唐人街、赤立角機場的隔離酒店接合是同一空間。
Entering 2022 with a Peephole of Love (ZHANG Zimu)
Having my third quarantine in Shenzhen, I was leaping to another new year marked by Covid-19. This time, I wanted to get it right, just the right amount of sorrow, excitement, boredom and whatever fluctuating emotions might incubate during the 14 days of confinement. I played a peeping game with all the uniformed figures dressed in white or black, and fulfilled my secret task to turn them all into queer lovers. 熟練的酒店隔離，從適應轉為嬉戲。
Light Flashes, Time Passes 《一瞥浮光，恍如隔世。》(Dory Cheng)
Why do we remember the past and not the future?
Do we exist in time, or does time exist in us?
What does it mean to say that time passes?
Because of the light, there is time.
Camera is a time machine.
Light flashes, Time passes.
/ inspired by a theoretical physicist Carlo Rovelli.
（作者原文）為什麼我們記住的是過去而不是未來？
我們存在於時間之中，還是時間存在於我們之中？
到底什麼是時間的流逝？
因為光，所以有了時間。
相機猶如時光機。
一瞥浮光，恍如隔世。
/ 靈感來自理論物理學家卡洛·羅威利。
During the quarantine… (Dory Cheng)
During the quarantine, many people asked me: what could you do? Was it dull? The fact is: I could do anything in that room.
A red line came upon my mind suddenly. “You won’t be able to know exactly what behavior is permitted or not. Only when there is no single red line is the red line everywhere.” Consciousness is like an endless line. We make different decisions based on different experiences and clues. Our consciousness in different moments does not always seem to connect, but they are certainly traceable..
（作者原文）在隔離時，很多人問我有什麼東西可以做？會不會很沉悶？… … 意識好像一條連綿不盡的線，我哋根據不同經驗、線索作不同決定，意識看沒有關聯，往往有 踪可尋。
II. The Inside is Outside, and Vice Versa… 外眺、仰望
Reach (Kyle Calvin Villiagorda Salen)
Quarantine offers a new perspective in how we may view our surroundings in this newfound age of isolation and stagnation. For the first time for some of us, we live in an age of relative peace and technological innovation. And even in face of the plenty that has happened in our current situation, we may still consider our life to be ideal. But for many others, it could be considered a living hell.
Reach is meant to capture the feeling of distance and out-of-body-ness, which not only leaves us cut off from one another, but also detached from ourselves. POV and sightlines are integral parts of my narrative vehicle. I want the sequence to be a playful derangement of the audience’s expectation. With the minimum resources I had, I played with time and emotions to transpire isolation, boredom and the destruction of perceptual coherence… 我們活在相對幸福太平的年代？隔離卻是具體的。物理上的距離、脫離自己的軀體又是怎麼的一回是？沒有了身體座標出發的，純視線可能嗎？
Blocked (Mandy Yau 邱黛珥)
There is a supposed “beginning,” an ongoing “end” and an in-between that is lost to time.
Having spent the majority of my waking hours in my own room, especially in the past year or so, it has become my self-made prison. Escapism. A recurrent cycle of constancy. I feel blocked and I block myself off from the outside world. My perception of time is further distorted… The momentary and the indefinitely lasting are part of each other. Thoughts. Fragmented. Forming no bigger picture. Can I depict it? Can I image it? Can I turn all this into sounds? What about words? … All simply iterations of my thought process, each in its own way. May this sequence be a snippet of a layer of my mental state and a face-to-face encounter with myself. 「然後 …，然後 …，接著 …，於是 …」要是最實在的都掉進連接詞接合不來的縫隙裡呢?
Elevators with Me (CHAN Hoi-tat 陳海達)
A boy’s claustrophobia taking the elevator. Narrating a space, I found myself narrating a feeling. Narrating a trip as well as questioning without wanting an answer… I don’t have any meaningful message to bring out in this work: “narrating” itself is the meaning, presenting what I feel and what I think when I am taking the elevators. Every elevator trip is a “bad trip.” Please feel what I feel in my 3-act elevator narrative. 和我一起鑽進升降機裡去吧。
The Forbidden Zone 禁區 (WU Tsz-ki 胡芷淇)
Someone breaks into a roof-top that is supposed to be “out of reach.”
“I construct the language of my emotions through the collage of warning signs and images of the surrounding, leaving the question open: what is the present yet unseen character facing?”
This piece is inspired by a regular walk I make wandering on the student residence’s rooftop where I sight many warning signs. Looking around the two-story-tall rooftop with many hurdles surrounding me, I feel trapped in a place of danger. 高眺或遠望，迎來的是各種的警示標誌。到底天台是用來幹嘛的？
/… to be continued…
