Grabs and Flows, In a Swirl
Micro-Narrative 2020
Perhaps we have been living in a swirl — a whirlpool of past, present and future, of time, space, ideas, thoughts, emotions and imaginations, of sights and sounds, tunes and noises, stillness, sensations, motions and vacillations … Sometimes we are here, at the same time we might not be. When do we split? When do we concentrate? When do we grab, to hold on to something? When do we let go to flow and swirl? Do we notice it when sparks quietly fly? Are we waiting for them, or are we creating them? …
In the turbulent, truncated autumn semester of 2019, we walked through an extreme state of sensations. Uncertainties succeeded by possibilities and vice versa, private and shared experiences blended, we could not stop changing our mind for what it was that we perceived … How do we position ourselves in such a time, in the swirls of glances and thoughts fleeting each moment? Is it possible to record the grabs and flows and how? Rather than relying on established standard visual languages, we took liberties in (re-)inventing our own.
Grabs and Flows, In a Swirl shows 26 young artists’ videography, each in their own unique flow and experimented temporal measures. In 2019 autumn, almost 90 videos were made by these young artists, from the ongoing exploration of videography in Prof. Linda Lai’s concept-driven workshop Micro Narratives. The selected works here are the explorations of the artists’ own languages in videography in different dimensions — as games, diaries, essays, journals, deconstructions, experimentations with tools and mediums, as a journey to their own conscious and experience, as image sculptures…
Almost all of these works reveal media convergence as the new default of videography. The difference between effects and camerawork, or stills versus moving images, relaxes. Call it video, call it collage, a montage exercise, or animation, if you like. Should this work be better shown as a single-channel video, or a projected installation? All open works. What we call “editing” should better be understood as “composing,” as in music. The traditional shot system may or may not work, demanding new descriptions. Some take videography as a unique activity to have one’s voice heard in specific moments of unstated attitude — performing one’s selves, performing one’s consciousness. Where do I take my camera? Videography, by definition, pertains to writing. These artists were writing their minds freely, rather than representing digested, interpreted realities.
