1.shift in depiction: from social visage to individual personality
2.vision: after the reform and opening-up policy, the urban areas were drastically expanding, conflicting with countrysides
3.genre: no genre, no strict rules, innovations from European genres like French New Wave. Boldly trying out new shooting styles and narratives.
Concept:
The site that I chose for observation was Union Sq 14th St Station. I watched a lot of street artists performing in cold weather for hours. They were performing for the passengers passing by, bringing people happiness but at the same time they were not, because of no matter if anyone really gets the performance, they would continue. In that regard they were really doing this for themselves. Understanding that carrying heavy devices and commute to crowded public space was nothing easy, I don’t know what was motivating them to perform regularly, but I admired that passion and determination so much. The street artists within the NY state is a community that contains very different people, binding by nothing but their radiation. They were like heat sources radiating to surroundings, and the radiation was uneven and covering the entire space. I picked light materials that can float and support themselves in the air. The warm colors in my work represented when someone was captured by their performance, the temperature at that spot would rise.
Source1: Cannes Film Festival: Chinese film industry evolution embodied by ‘sixth generation’ directors Jia Zhangke and Zhang Ming
https://www.scmp.com/culture/film-tv/article/2145097/cannes-film-festival-chinese-film-industry-evolution-embodied-sixth
Source2: Jia Zhangke: why my films are received differently in China and abroad
Source3: The reformation of Chinese Cinema and the birth of the the Six generation of Chinese directors
http://www.sohu.com/a/195458395_425345
I hardly have watched any Chinese art films until going abroad. In the past I was exposed to, and was more interested in French and American films. Recently, I happened to watch Ash is the purest white with my sister, a great film with dark humor and a touch of people’s mental state in China. I have noticed that the majority of Chinese audience preferred popular movie genres, and merely exposed to art films. During the winter break, I went back China and watched a highly rated art film called The Last Night on Earth because interestingly, it received a lot of angry complaints from a part of the audience, mostly those who are not used to art film genre. It again called on my curiosity in learning about the situation of Chinese art films: where are them now and how is the Chinese cinema going to improve?
I looked up theree sources with related key words describing the situation and problems we are facing
( The sixth generation was expected to become the ‘fifth’ while they were in college. However, after graduation they found it hard to direct their own movies when assigned to several domestic studios. Also art films were hardly approved by authority and got chance to be played in cinemas because the political and social sensitivity in content.)
I plan to use organza as my basic material. I looked up the works of the artist Benjamin Shine because he used tulle to represent his ideas. Many of us realize the fragile characteristic of tulle or organza or any other gauze-like material, but I appreciate that Benjamin overcame the difficulty of using the textile, considering that it is very soft and thus hard to control. Benjamin also played well with the tangible materials and give them untouchable smoke-like effect. I am interested in the techniques he applied to support the fabrics and make them stand on their own.
In the panel that I will make, I want to reserve the uncertainty of the material. The shape of the panel would be close to circular, since my idea is that the street performers spread their passion like radiation to surroundings.
I want to sew a pillow like structure with organza and put the content inside. The pillow would probably be lying rather than standing or hanging.
Concept: public performers glow with their passion like heat source transmitting energy to the surrounding. This transmitting process isn’t even. It cannot reach everyone. It is impossible for the performers to affect every audience, and sometimes it can be really lonely, but even knowing that there is just one who understands the performer’s body language and emotions is encouraging enough for the performers. These invisible radiation rays go through people and connect strangers into a community. It can be from one performer to an audience, or one performer to the other. The warmer the color is, the more connected they are.
Approach: Two layers. The bottom layer has printed patterns on it. The top layer combines various materials including fabric and thread and even acrylic sheet. The goal is to maintain a gap between two layers so as to create sense of 3D.
map of site communities
map of my communities
Concept statement
I learned about the creature, krill, from The Silent Spring. A krill is translucent, it lives in massive population in the ocean around the globe. I saw the way the krill kicked its legs in the water, that it seemed to be uncertain about where to go, while its kicking was so hard and determined. It’s movement and its transparency indicate a little sadness. Because a krill is transparent, so it has no choice whether to be exposed to the surrounding. I could observe its entrails with interest, and I could see through its feeling if it has them. That’s how a mini creature living in a completely different scale comes into comparison with me. I am not good at burying my feelings. I reveal whatever I feel on my face without consciousness, and if I try to digest them, they don’t seem to really go away. If I hide them, my feelings erupt at some point.
Reflection
I didn’t really spend too much time struggling what to present in the zine, but I spent a lot of time asking myself why I chose krill and how am I going to explain it to my audience. I experimented and revised a lot to put my fragmented thoughts in sequence so the readers are not confused.
The idea of krill jumped out when I walked across the street, so I assume that it has been in my unconsciousness for a while. But about how it started, I believe it is from a memory:
I got a bag of shrimp eggs along while at primary school. I scattered the flesh-color powder-like eggs into clear water and on the third day I witnessed the tiny creatures that live in a completely different scale from I. I had to use a magnifying glass to see their legs. I saw every baby shrimp kicking in the water flow in a random direction. A million question marks lay in my head at that moment.
Unfortunately, the baby shrimps gradually stopped kicking after a few days, which makes the memory more unforgettable……I could do nothing!
About the material, tracing paper is a perfect demonstration for the idea. But it was so soft and fragile that I tried hard not to create wrinkles on it. The bookbinding was a challenge. I didn’t want staples to be present with the zine cover, so I fastened every page with double-faced adhesive tape to keep the simplicity on my zine cover, which definitely added inconvenience and difficulty to the bookbinding.
The dummy and the final work were different in content. From the feedback, I realized that the anecdote that I included in the dummy didn’t really work well in explaining the idea of lucency and minification to the audience, so I deleted it and emphasized the ideas directly through images and textures.
This is how I prefer to wear when going outdoor to have fun. I hate carrying heavy things, which gives me a sense of burden, so keeping it as light and casual as possible makes me feel at ease.
This is a reflection of how my friends see me, very complex. They see fortitude and determination in me, from the way I handle work, the way I walk, the straight forward way I talk in, to my appearance: locked brows, my angular chin, and my serious (sometimes even seems to be angry, they said) expression when I was thinking or focusing. But they also see blandness and indecision (and stupidity) in me when I take care of friends, making various decisions, get shy or respond to funny things.
This is the way I see myself. Hard to describe. I am super emotional, I laugh very loudly and joke with my friends for 24 hours in a day. I only reveal my humor in front of intimate friends and I enjoy killing time in nature with them.
A reflection of my status. I hold a lot of questions in my head and is seeking for results in New York. The next step might be reconstructing a face in my collage, if given more time.
Mine in New York
&
Mum’s in Shenzhen
OK i feel so hungry now.
Joy relates to everyone.
What do we do to stay alive, and to cr e a t e j o y ? . ….
