Expanded Perspective -

Curated by Kedy - Videotage Hong Kong

UGC CInema : 10th March. 8pm

Video artists do not create images. What they do is to visualize the unseen and invent new ways of seeing. To expand audience's visual experience, the videos selected in this program make use of the camera lens to break the boundaries of our perceptual power and diversify the images of ordinary city life in dissimilar ways. Through the lens, images are captured, transformed and composed into new forms of representations. Thanks to the video artists, we see what we can't see.

SCREENING PROGRAMME :

SLIDING WHITE 9' / 2004

SIU Chi-man Eric (Hong Kong)

ELEVEN times ONE divided by (SEVEN plus TWELVE plus TWENTY plus THIRTY plus FORTY plus FIFTY plus SIXTY plus SEVENTY plus EIGHTY plus NIGHTY plus ORIGIN) in 100 and sliding in points. Sliding White is composed of mathematical system and computer editing; it is an attempt to extend human sight sensation through digital visual effects.

Eric Siu gained a diploma of Digital Media Studies in Hong Kong Institute of Vocational Education (Kwun Tong), and a degree in School of Creative Media in City University of Hong Kong. Eric is a young artist, who loves to do experiments on video, image, animation or action. He gained a Distinguish Award at the 8th Hong Kong Independent Short Film and Video Awards 2002 with his film Constructing Destruction, and his works has shown in Belgium, Japan, Korea and Hong Kong. He is now working on a device to make critics on human sight sensation.

SUCK/BLOW 4' / 2001 LEUNG

Chi-wo (Hong Kong)

In Suck / Blow, the director alters the perception of the urban space through the act of breathing.

Leung was born in Hong Kong in 1968, graduated with a MFA from the Chinese University of Hong Kong in 1997 after a photography study in l'Istituto per lo Sviluppo Socio-Economico dello Spilimberghese in Italy and an internship in het Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst in Ghent, Belgium. He has done a few exhibitions in Hong Kong, New York, Melbourne, Tokyo, Oslo, Vienna, Hamburg and Toronto, etc. Awards received include the Asian Cultural Council Fellowship (1997) and Urban Council Award of the Contemporary Hong Kong Art Biennial (1996). In 2000, he has held a solo exhibition in the Queens Museum of Art, New York. In 2001, his site-specific project was exhibited in the Hong Kong Pavilion in the Venice Biennale.

CANNED DESPAIR 3' / 2004

Hung Chi Wing (Hong Kong)

"We can't escape the disaster" is the main concept of Canned Despair. Human eat animals, and they were then killed by natural disaster and war. Everything is in the cycle and no one can escape it. The director tries to create a mythological image of all human life, and to show the other side of the idea of beauty within the grotesque.

AFTERMATH (IN MEMORY OF HIS BODY) 8'/ 2004

CHAN Nose & LAU Christopher (Hong Kong)

Aftermath investigates both the choreographer's and video director's point of view for the memory of a dying body. Taking the body as both the object and the subject for examinations, Aftermath abstracts the "time and space" of a dying body. The time travel of a spirit (or the soul) parallel to the "flash-back" happens in one's mind right before his/her body dies. Here, the decaying body is a continuity of living, a part of life process; like the blood comes out from the body and enters into another cosmos, and we start to see the inner space and the outer space reflect each other. As the old Chinese expression says "Life happens after death." This piece is dedicated to the loved ones who died around us, but their souls remain.

Christopher graduated with a Master Degree in Fine Art in Hong Kong, preceded by his Mathematic Degree from Brock University of St. Catherine, Canada. He works include video, net art, and interactive installations. Major works have been shown in Microwave International Media Art Festival 2002, Independent Short Film and Video Award Screening (2002), Meditation of the Sea - multimedia performance at the University of Hong Kong (2003), Sense Nonsense - group Exhibition (2003) at Cattle Depot Artist Village. Nose Chan graduated from University of Hong Kong in Biology. He began making video in 1998, and regularly screens his work locally and abroad. In 2000, he won the Distinguished Award in the 6th Hong Kong Independent short Film and Video Award for his piece Well. In 2003, he participated in the 1st Berlinale Talent Campus in The Berlin International film Festival. Chan also participates in many theatre and independent film productions.

MISSING HENRY 6' / 2003

WOO Ling-ling (Hong Kong)

"Sitting in the middle of a room, searching for traces of emotions that could have been sunk in an abyss long ago…finding only fragments of dialogues and images picked up from a movie…helping the relocation of her own subdued passion trapped behind closed doors…missing Henry…" Missing Henry is the déjà vu of a woman trapped in space and time, reminisces some illusive reality never settled from within.

Ling-ling is a diploma graduate from The Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts majoring in stage design. After graduation, she has been actively participated in several theatre productions working as costume designer, graphic designer, and photographer. She then received her degree in the School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong. Her major interests are to open up channels of self-expression through the use of art and to explore the medium of video art, especially on the fusion of theatre performance and digital media.

EARTH-WATER-WIND-FIRE 12'/ 2003

CHEUNG Chi-kai Guy (Hong Kong)

This work is an integration of two seldom-related mediums: video and ceramic sculpture. In the teaching of Buddhism, all objective material things, ranging from a speck of dust to the vast world, are composed of four basic elements, namely Earth, Water, Wind and Fire. These elements combine and disintegrate as a result of a network of closely-knit and interlocked cause-and-effect relationships. All material things therefore undergo moment-to-moment changes from their creation to extinction and transformation continually and unceasingly. There is no exception for either a ceramic sculpture or a human being. In the course of producing a ceramic work, the four elements mingled and interacted with each other. In the video, the same type of clay that had been treated under different conditions of fire, water and air, displayed different level of permanence. The same rule applies for all living beings. Existence is merely a transient integration of the basic elements. The ephemeral nature of life is thus emphasized.

Guy is passionate in art, and received a BA (Fine Arts) degree from RMIT University, while he works as a dental surgeon. His works were presented in various visual arts exhibitions, including "Infinite 3" by Hong Kong Arts Centre, "Fotan Gathering" by The Marching Group, and "Blooming Art 2001" exhibited in Taikoo Place.

UNTITLED-3 17' / 2003

LI Fierysky (China) An attempt to explore people's various identities in their corresponding space and time. Li adopts a dynamic and relaxed approach to the subject instead of questioning it rationally. Documenting a narcissistic writer at work, it slowly reveals that all the characters he writes are the projections of his subconscious selves.

Trained in fine arts, Li has always attempted to create works integrating modern dance and other performing arts and visual arts.

VERY FANTASTIC 8' / 2002

SO Man-yee Stella (Hong Kong) Putting together ghosts of goodness, surreal pre-war buildings, and traditional Chinese 9 square calligraphy paper pattern, you get an animation short about Hong Kong local culture and preservation local heritage. Through representing the strange space of Hong Kong streets in a combination of Chinese 9 square calligraphy paper, Very Fantastic is a 2D animation expressing Hong Kong views in pre-war period, to show how fantastic of the Hong Kong building and how importance to reserve Hong Kong own culture to be our heritage.

Stella So graduated from School of Design, Polytechnic University of Hong Kong. She has worked as a graphic design in MILK magazine. She also produced an animated music video for canton pop-singer Anthony Wong's song featuring Sandy Lam. Stella's unique animation and graphic style in Very Fantastic has won her many awards from local and international festivals including Gold Award in Independent Short Film and Video Festival 2003, Interfilm 2003 (Berlin), VideoEvento D'arte 2003 (Turin) and has been shown in various festivals screening programs local and aboard.

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About Videotage

(Videotage (literally merging the two concepts of "Video" and "Montage") is a non-profit interdisciplinary artist collective, which focuses on the development of video and new media art in Hong Kong. Founded in 1985, Videotage began as a facilitator for collaborative time-based projects. In a small shared office with two chairs and table, Videotage's support to artists came in the form of labour and equipment for production and post-production, and the exchange of ideas. Videotage has since expanded to include publications, education, exhibitions and screenings.)