AGITATION IN EDWARD YANG’ S MOVIES
蒙面的騷動
DETAILS
Multi-channel Video Installation (color, silent), 4 CRT Monitors, Single Video Projection, 2022
NOTES
An experimental video installation of scenes from Edward Yang's That Day, on the Beach (1983), Terrorizers (1986), A Brighter Summer Day(1991), Taipei Story (1985), and Yi Yi (2000).
In the movie “ Taipei Story (1985) ” directed by Edward Yang, the two main characters are talking in a house with the lights off. This part is mainly focused on the faces. The amount of light entering the lens is significantly less, and the facial features are like flowing in a completely black screen, leaving an infinite dark background that makes the characters an immaterial existence with only outlines. Director Yang’s films have a method different from the use of light and shadow contrast in German expressionist films. The shadows' flat shape visually impacts the screen's complexity and three-dimensional arrangement to create a plot or emotion. Instead of a clear expression, all kinds of details are presented in the light and shadow, succumbing to a wholeness. The film becomes closer to some paintings and photographs, which are closer to mysticism or symbolism.
In 1902, photographer Edward J. Steichen took a photo of Rodin and the sculpture, capturing the moment Steichen accurately captured. The statue's body has not been shaped yet, and Rodin's head is only the outline. He is in the dark, and his body is full of dots of noise. They seem to be flickering and vibrating as if Rodin, the sculptor's imagination is also working at the highest speed.
The dynamic images in the CRT TV and projection installations are extracted from the dark scenes in many films by Edward Yang. The dark parts of the faces in the film are piled up to form a randomly generated image of pixel dots. In reality, shadows are like negative projections to me. Using negative film to process images is to show the "black" in movies with the maximum luminance of the TV. When I spend more time watching these clear-cut but ambiguous figures, I seem to be able to feel the dark parts in Edward Yang's films, where the answers are always softly revealed.
