Showed my 5 videos on TV all together.
- Olivia pointed out that most videos were around nourishment for surviving and asked how about using a non-necessity as a source. Weiwei also suggested me to have more different content. It’s true that I was looking at daily activities in the house because emptiness for me didn’t come from certain specific events/activities but just daily life without concrete specific causes. But I would think further about it.
- Chalkie said she felt sense of frustration from doing things over and over again. The combination and rhythm of the sound could also be thought about. I’m happy that she has felt the frustration because frustration of attempts is the point I want to express. It’s not my intention to mix the sound. The way I play them together on one screen is because it’s the only equipment I could use at the moment. I didn’t pay much attention to sound and I just recorded it with my actions. I’m not sure about it because I don’t actually know anything about it. And it’s not quite the area I want to focus on to be honest, although it’s part of the videos.
- A few people mentioned that all were quite clean and Olivia mentioned feeling of absence – ghost like trance. Chalkie said it could be more human – flesh and bones, blood and tears. I responded that because emptiness is like no trace, no evidence of being, and unstable ego without a strong sense of being. Elodie brought up that sometimes she felt empty at a club. Someone also said that emptiness could be portrayed without visual emptiness. I agree with emptiness can be felt in a crowd, which I have had many experiences with. To go to people to me is also a futile attempt against emptiness. But these videos are just one way of showing the futility of attempts through the interaction with daily objects. I just haven’t come up with another way of expressing that yet. I don’t know about Chalkie’s suggestion because emptiness or futility to me isn’t a solid or strong feeling. It’s more flowing. The sense of human is just too vivid and lively.
- MC saw absurdity and thought of the book The Unbearable Lightness of Being. She also shared Meret Oppenhiem’s fur cup. Though absurdity isn’t what I want to show, I think it’s a bit related to the repetition of the futile attempts. I’m glad that the videos reminded her of the book, which I know but haven’t read, because it is the feeling of emptiness, which is the context of the videos. Lightness is a part I want to cover. It’s also good to have an artist to look at as I haven’t got many practical references for this project but many books.
- Yash felt loneliness and depression, and the dark edges in the videos is like a layer of unhappiness projected on same scenes. Though loneliness and depression are not the point I want to show, I think they’re symptoms of emptiness, which are closely related. I’m surprised by her reading of the darkness because I didn’t really think this way but I like it. The original videos are quite dark and I just added lighting effects centered on the objects.
- Clare said it’s nice when videos went off one by one unexpectedly. It’s like some bits are lost. It’s not my intention but I think I like the sense of inconsistency of the presentation because I think it goes with the sense of incompletion of the videos or the unstable ego fragments.
- Ekua suggested me to develop a narrative by bringing the videos together in one piece. I responded that the reason why I shot them separately was that there’s no storyline among the videos. Someone mentioned I could use empty cuts/shots in between. Elodie and Weiwei preferred the separation as viewers could choose which to watch with the effect of lots going on at the same time. Ekua said one piece made more sense if it’s displayed on one screen. Then I mentioned that I was thinking about using monitors for the ideal presentation because it’s like the activities were contained in the monitors as they were contained in the house.
- Joe told me not to have emptiness constrain my experimentation and maybe I hadn’t found what I was really thinking. I understand his point because I do have found my thoughts and practice are largely constrained by my idea/theme. But to be honest, my practice just serves my ideas. I just don’t really see a point of practice without an idea. I think it can be very beneficial of just doing without much thinking or reasoning, but with the tight deadlines, I really don’t think I’m able to work that way. I always have to have a reason for my action, which I have mentioned multiple times in the blog I believe.
I feel I’m more and more doubtful about my relationship with photography. I’m not after visual effects but it seems valuable/important hearing about feedback for others’ photography work. I guess I have talked about this in previous posts but what’s the meaning of a beautiful photograph without an idea? It’s true that there’re many professional photographers mainly looking at visual effects, which I think is in need for many fields. But for art, I don’t see the point. But many people want/like beautiful work. Maybe my understanding about art/photography is wrong. I don’t know.
Eva Wang 