Assignment

Using the medium/presentation format of your choice, propose and create a work that further examines and/or critiques one or more ideas, texts, pieces, theories that we have explored during the semester.

Artist Statement

For the open works project, I created a video installation inspired by “News From Home” by Chantal Akerman and Freud’s “The Uncanny.” The 4-minute video is in a series of vignettes that are separated by black space combined with voicemails from my dad that span from last year to now. The video was then projected on a plastic painter’s cloth that was hung up in the corner of the space.

When I began this project, I wanted to incorporate time by exploring something very personal to me, which was my memories of my dad. For the process, I shot a series of videos of a journey of me traveling to the beach while my dad’s voicemails played in the background. There is only one moment in the film where I actually turned back and face the camera right when he says his last hello. Most of the clips were also extremely zoomed in so that it would focus on certain details, especially my hair. Subtitles were intentionally left out to create space between the piece and its audiences. The audio at the beginning of the video is the same as the end, so that it can be looped.

For the physical aspect of the piece, I knew I couldn’t project it normally like on a flat screen. Everything had to have meaning. It was installed in a corner of the space because the piece showed my personal vulnerability and I didn’t want it to be projected onto a screen and have people sitting behind the comfort of chairs and tables. Instead, I engaged the piece by moving the tables and chairs away and letting people sit around me as I watched my own piece. The way it was hung up also played into this unperfect relationship between me and him. I bought painter’s cloth, rope, and spring links to create an installation where the video could be projected. I bought the painter’s cloth because it reminded me of a time, just after we came to America, how my dad would do these odd jobs earning minimum wage building/painting houses and everything was somewhat okay.

When I first tested the installation at home, all I could think about was “The Uncanny” by Sigmund Freud, specifically the unheimlich. The way Freud explained it, I kept this house being built in my mind and my dad was constructing it from the interior. However, I wasn’t watching from the inside and there was this invisible separation between me and this structure that was meant to be occupied, something very homely. When I began conceptualizing this project, I thought I was going to film a very literal response to these voicemails and my rejection of them. However, I kept listening to them and working on them and I couldn’t make myself to edit it in that way. As much as I wanted to reject/hide away from this uncanny relationship with my dad, he is still my dad. I wanted to create subtle responses to these voicemails because in real life I wouldn’t be able to express this feeling to the audience who are watching this piece from outside the unheimlich home.

After watching the final edit of the piece on my computer, I felt like I could be more objective about it during my presentation. I didn’t expect I was going to react so intensely when I presented during class, especially since it was in front of my peers. Seeing myself projected onto the installation while listening to my dad’s voice was overwhelming, but it ultimately became a part of the piece. Because the voicemails were in Chinese, everyone wouldn’t have understood what it meant if I hadn’t allowed them to see my own reactions to it.