GMU:Breaking the Timeline/projects/nicht blind, mute und deaf

I. Concept

To replace dialogues from my memory, such as the conversations I have heard on TV, dialogues in a film and songs I usually listen to on the images I see every day in Weimar.

The project tends to show the feeling of alienation and solitary while celebrating the natural born ability of my mind, that is even if it is frustrating to be not able to understand from the actual audio in reality, my mind can replace another audio track onto the visual, thus generating a new scene that I preferred in my mind.

II. Video descriptions and Film language

Screen 1 - the screens

It shows a collage of the footages of a game during the World Cup (Germany vs Ghana) that I was watching, including livestream, TV, youtube highlights, Fifa (playstation). While the audio was taken from the same match on the same day and at the same time on a TV channel (a Portuguese channel) in Macau that I used to watch football games.

The collage of flikery footages depicts the huge flow of information of mass media. Images we see on TV, on Internet contains more information than we need, even on one single item. For example, for a football game, there is already a wide range of selections online or TV channels we can choose, excluding radio and podcast. It is the wide range of choices that makes us take it for granted, that allows us to jump from one source to another without digesting the content. It also reflects the relationship between audio and visual. In here, Portuguese and German would not make a big difference for me, it is the images I am watching helps me understand and it is the huge amount of images I am viewing that I almost ignore the importance of the audio. The thing that keeps my interest is the familiar voices, the articulation of a language that provokes my nostalgia.

<videoflash type="vimeo">19014594|500|300</videoflash>

Screen 2 - the park

It is a random day during the semester, part of the routine of a person does. Besides going to class, working, shopping at the grocery, a nice day in the summer would be chilling out at the park. So I took the camera with me, I saw some German boys were playing football, chatting, laughing and having fun. It would be very nice to know what they were talking.

In this context, I am a foriegner, an outsider who does not speak the same language and does not belong to their group. The camera position shows the allienation and distance between an ingroup and an outsider: a long shot, blurred, peeks (grass in the foreground). The camera movement depicts the exhaustion in getting to understand and waiting for a chance to communicate when the camera lost its focus while tilting down.

The audio is taken from a Hong Kong film, Beast Cops (1998), directed by Gordon Chan and Dante Lam. The summery of their conversation is that what matters in life is not about doing things to please the others, it is about doing things to please yourself. The dialoge is simple and it becomes sacastic when the voice is dubbed to teenagers' conversation but not the adults, as this simple topic can also be discussed among teenagers. Whereas in the film, it is discussed among men who are portrayed masculine and mature.

<videoflash type="vimeo">19014964|500|300</videoflash>

Screen 3 - the girlfriends

It is a collage of distorted close ups of the girls I met in Weimar. They are the people who I spent most of my time with, who I will miss and see in my mind when I leave.

This video is different than the other two because it meant to be the imaginary series of images in the actual mind. This is why it employs a lot of effects that imitate the exagerrated imagery in the mind.

Moreover, I believe music is the best common language among us, it is to express our emotions and to show passion to one another. The tune I used is taken from Modjo "Lady" (acoustic version) which decribes the romantic moment when a man meets a woman. It fits quite well to my friendship as they represent my romance to meet new people as well as the escape from being an outsider.

However the visual and audio are prolonged, thus distorting the sound itself. It then creates a feeling of hollow and creepiness which contrasts with the happy faces, foreshadowing the emptiness I will have after they are gone. It also shows my view on how a person perceives vibes; from a normal pace and tone before processing, then to a slow motion, altered pitch chanting while the mind processes a melodic expression.

<iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/19304433" width="400" height="225" frameborder="0"></iframe>

<a href="http://vimeo.com/19304433">the girlfriends</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/naterciachang">natercia chang</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.

To download the full documentation including the topics presented before: Media:Project documentation.pdf