Jockey Club New Arts Power
JOCKEY CLUB New Arts Power, launched in 2017, is an annual Arts Festival presented by the Hong Kong Arts Development Council with the funding support from The Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust. The Festival brings together established and emerging local artists to produce creative, approachable and engaging arts experiences for all. Over the past three years, 38 arts groups have participated in the Festival. Together they produced 72 live performances and a remarkable number of major exhibitions. Uniting art groups and various organisations from the social welfare, academic and commercial sectors, the festival held over 450 community and school events, reaching some 380,000 participants. JOCKEY CLUB New Arts Power 2020 / 2021 will be held from September 2020, featuring a total of 9 selected programmes that include dance, theatre, music, xiqu, multimedia and visual arts exhibition, as well as presenting more than 100 community and school activities.
Table of Content About Joseph Lee .............................................................................................................. 2 About Unfolding Images: We are Spectacle(s) ................................................................. 3 Interview with Joseph Lee: “Instead of a dance, I’d rather call it a performance.” ........ 4 A Brief History of Photography ......................................................................................... 6 To Photograph and to be Photographed ......................................................................... 8 To See and to be Seen .................................................................................................... 10 (Note: The English version is translated from the Chinese version. In case of discrepancies between the two versions, the Chinese version shall prevail.)
JOCKEY CLUB New Arts Power
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About Joseph Lee Joseph Lee began his dance training at the age of seventeen. He graduated from the Chinese University of Hong Kong with a bachelor in Professional Accountancy, then obtained his Master of Arts in Contemporary Dance at The Place, London Contemporary Dance School in the UK in 2015. He joined the Unlock Dancing Plaza as resident artist until 2020 when he was appointed as Associate Art Director. Lee is active in expanding the audience’s imaginary horizons of choreography by creating and performing with the body and other alternatives. His recent interests lie in the reading, transfer and reenactment of bodily experience and in questioning the performance nature of everyday life in our contemporary society. Lee has collaborated with various art units. In 2017, he curated with independent dance artist KT Yau for re: do/ Joseph Lee/ KT Yau, which was the first local crowdfunded performance. The production toured in the Beijing Dance Festival, International Performance & Dance Festival in Mainz, City Contemporary Dance Festival in Hong Kong as well as Guangdong Dance Festival. Lee was awarded Hong Kong Arts Development Award for “Young Artist” (2017) and the ChinLin Foundation for “Emerging Choreographer Award” (2016). He is also one of the members of iCoDaCo (International Contemporary Dance Collective), a twoyear project to create a collective co-creation with five other choreographers from different European countries. His main choreographies include It tastes like you, Folding Echoes, The World Was Once Flat and Drifting.
Facebook / Instagram: josephwnlee
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About Unfolding Images: We are Spectacle(s) Technology has not only subverted the art of portrait photography and its transmission; it has altered people’s way of seeing and the habitual manner of body movement. As we take up the focus of other people’s camera lenses, we are also searching for the target of our next portrait. Each of us has become a spectacle in the eyes of one another. Choreographer Joseph Lee explores the above phenomenon in his latest offering Unfolding Images: We Are Spectacle(s). Echoing his acclaimed solo contemporary dance piece Folding Echoes, this time, rather than embarking on a oneman journey, Lee teams up with five performers to explore and examine the various body gestures as a form of experiment. Drawing references from the concept of portrait photography as a starting point, Lee and his performers probe into the delicate relations between a performer and a spectator, and the peculiar desire to see and be seen. In the digital age, the mass production and consumption of images in the age of social media has allowed everyone to pose in the limelight. One moment you are the centre of the attention, and the next you descend into the backdrop of another person who takes up the spotlight. The five performers participating in this experiment turn their bodies into vessels to capture and channel this fleeting spectacle that embodies the essence of this digital age phenomenon that has encroached upon us today.
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Interview with Joseph Lee: “Instead of a dance, I’d rather call it a performance.” Lee’s latest production, Unfolding Images: We Are Spectacle(s), reveals the diversified scenery of human bodies in miscellaneous fields through the dance of performers and the presentation of their bodies. From the perspective of photography, the show allows audience to comprehend the bodies of their own and others in daily life circumstances.
The Process of Seeing In one of the scenes, audience were arranged to situate at the stage’s centre while the 5 performers were jogging around. “The bodies of running are ordinary and simple. Meanwhile, however, the costume and movement of performers, as well as the indoor projection, could inspire imagination among viewers.” As the action lasted for a while, audience were allowed enough time and space to actively “see” the happening, instead of absorbing various kinds of information endlessly and passively. Lee called it a process of reading that requires time.
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The Body as Performance Regarding the artistic position of Unfolding Images: We Are Spectacle(s), Lee considers it as a reflection on performance. “I believe it is a performance about performance. After all, photography is a kind of performances as well.” “I guess the term ‘dance’ may not be most precise description, as the show is laden with sundry elements, each of which manifests a familiar setting to the audience. There exists a solid structure; it is a play that addresses viewers directly. They are regularly reminded of such messages as ‘we are going to jog’ and ‘here is what you are going to see’ by the performers, framing the expectation of audience. But can their anticipation be full filled by the actual content? This is what makes the event intriguing.” Lee is inspired by the bodily reaction at specific moments of taking casual photos, for instances, when one’s feet return to the ground from a leap as well as the transition from one’s natural state to the posture of “ready-to-be photographed”. All these sound interesting and peculiar to Lee. Unfolding Images: We Are Spectacle(s) are conducted by five different performers, which reflects Lee’s intention to blend distinctive sectors of art. “Only by this can our performers let go of the burden of their identities, such as dancers and actors, as well as certain preconceived notions induced by their value judgments.” “The work therefore questions the idea of ‘photography as performance’ and at the same time challenges the assumed logic of ‘dance as performance’.”
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A Brief History of Photography Unfolding Images: We Are Spectacle(s) themed around human portrait photography, communication, and seeing. Since its invention, photography has lasted for about 200 years. The advancement in technology has generated ceaseless improvement in the technique of photo taking. The sole substance that perpetuates may be the motivation for taking pictures: to retain the most beautiful moment with images. As we review the transformation of photography, we may be more likely to understand what is being explored in Lee’s latest offering. Photography The technology of reproducing captured images of real objects through recording. Photographic Process The scientific method of retaining an image. Camera Obscura The ancestor of photography that plays a critical role in the history of image. It has served as an essential aid for sketching and painting since the 15th century. The Principle of Camera Obscura: Reflex lens frosted light glass beam Travelling in a straight line, light passes through the lens. By reflection, it enters the box and strikes on the frosted glass inside, forming an image that depicts the actual colour and brightness of real scene. If one needs to draw the contour of the object captured, one could place a semi-transparent paper on the glass. Since the 19th century, inventors and scientists from France and Britain had been studying the scientific method of preserving “the picture drawn with light.” Adopting the principle of camera obscura, they attempted in vain to possess images with light absorbing material.
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The Birth of Photography After a century-long failure, the first surviving photograph, View from the Window at Le Gras, was achieved by French inventor Joseph Nicéphore Niépce in 1826. He reproduced the landscape on a pewter plate thinly coated with asphalt with an exposure lasting for eight hours. Afterwards, Niépce initialled his collaboration with Daguerre, another French inventor who devised the photographic process called Daguerreotype in 1939. The technology was acquired by the French government in the same year. Eventually, the birth of photography was declared on 19 August 1839.
View from the Window at Le Gras
The first journalistic photo is a daguerreotype documenting the arrest of a man by soldiers taken in 1847.
Boston, as the Eagle and the Wild Goose See It James Black, an American photographer, made the first successful aerial photograph in the Boston in collaboration with the balloon navigator Samuel Archer King on King's hot-air balloon, the Queen of the Air on October 13, 1860.
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Film Development Techniques in the Recent Era With technological advancement, there has been constant refinement concerning individual components of photography: lens, films, and camera, etc. From the application of hard photographic film like the glass in the mid-19th century to the release of pocket-sized camera in 1899, photography has gradually emerged as a tool for ordinary people to record life events. The first digital camera was issued in 1988. Since then, in just three decades, there have been fundamental changes regarding photographic techniques, spontaneity, and even the meaning of photo itself.
To Photograph and to be Photographed Human beings have been passionately documenting the shape of faces and bodies, as shown in colossal human sculptures in ancient Greek squares, religious portraits during medieval times, and photographic prints materialised since the mid-19th century. As the practice of photography permeates in our life, it does not take a professional to take pictures. Every person can be a photographer as well as a person being photographed. Consequently, pondering on “what makes a beautiful photo”, almost all of us would take into consideration of “how to take good photos” and “how to look good in our own photos”. The Expressions and Postures when Taking Photographs The standard of “a nice photo” may differ across cultures, races, and social strata. In other words, what sorts of photograph comply with the rule of etiquette? There exists a hidden convention governing how one should settle one’s expression, movement, and posture when one is being photographed. For instances, to sit properly and face straight to the camera for a school class photo, to avoid occupying the foreground when you are taking a selfie with your buddies, and to organise seats for seniors for a family photo. Does it ever occur to you that these aesthetic requirements are neither infinitely nor universally true? Nowadays, smiles are deemed charming for photo shoots. However, in more than a century ago, westerners were accustomed to tighten their lips and avoid showing their teeth in front of a camera. JOCKEY CLUB New Arts Power
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Specific gestures one makes during a photo shoot are mainly influenced by popular culture and vary over time. For instances, both the famous V sign and the finger heart gesture - which comes to prevail in recent years - carry their own different meanings. Likewise, the standing posture – up straight or legs crossed - responds to the trend of different era. Popular Hand Signs The “V” Sign Standing for “victory” during WWII, the sign was ingrained with the meaning of “peace” by American anti-war activists in the 60’s and were all the rage among young people in Japan during 70’s. On the other hand, a reverse Vsign delivers a sense of offence. The Finger Heart Gesture It was common to make small hearts with two hands. In recent years, however, the thumb and index finger gesture – an icon of South Korea’s popular culture – has gone viral across the world. Its origin is anonymous. The Photographer’s Commands During a photo session, the photographer would normally issue a command to his/her subjects. The most routine one is the saying “1…2…3…cheese”. This is particularly dominant when a professional photographer is in charge of the situation e.g., a wedding banquet. As subjects willingly follow the guidance, photos taken in similar fashion grow in quantity, thus reinforcing and prolonging this particular aesthetic standard. It is generally believed that photographs serve as realistic records of things and events. For instances, tourists are used to taking souvenir photos near attractions. Someday in the future, their albums help them recollect the landscape they have visited. Therefore, in a contemporary society, photographs function as the tool for comprehending the world. Concerning this, however, Susan Sontag, American cultural critics and philosopher, stated: “Strictly speaking, one never understands anything from a photograph.”
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According to Sontag, photography involves a process of selection. When one decides the specific time, space, and perspective of photo taking, one virtually manipulates the portrayals of reality and defines distinctive values to people or events being shot. Extended Reading Susan Sontag’s On Photography Through six acutely written essays, Sontag examines the social role of photography. A canonical discourse, On Photography explores in depth the nature of photography and ponders on such issues as whether photography it is a form of art, the interaction between photography and painting, the relationship between photography and real world, and the predatory and aggressive qualities of photography.
To See and to be Seen There exists a relationship of “to see” and “to be seen” between the photographer and the subject. “Seeing” is never a direct assimilation of information before one’s eyes whereas “being seen” can even give rise to a performance. Ways of seeing Ways of Seeing is a collection of essays by contemporary art critic John Berger who discusses deeply and extensively on how modern people perceive things and events. He proposes: “We never look at just one thing; we are always looking at the relation between things and ourselves” In short, when we are looking at things around us, we are, apart from the act of seeing, being constantly aware of the meanings provoked by those objects. For instances, the sight of birds in the sky may remind us of “freedom” and “flying”; the scene of fallen leaves may hint at revitalisation. Berger maintains that it is impossible to see without ideas. When one initiates the state of seeing, one creates motely ideas and meanings.
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Exercise 1 With the example of rose, Berger reviews the association and feelings aroused from the act of seeing. What comes to your mind upon noticing the following states of a rose?
1/ yet to bloom 2/ blossoming 3/ withering 4/ thorned Discuss your associations with others, and maybe you will discover something interesting. Exercise 2 The followings are some ubiquitous pictures on social media. Try to compose posts and hashtag (if applicable) for them.
When you were writing posts for the above pictures, did you hold in mind any target readers/audience? What sorts of image were you attempting to shape in social media?
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The Existence of an Audience The experience of “seeing” and “being seen” is relevant to each of us. Berger realised that “soon after we can see, we are aware that we can also be seen.” Here is an everyday scenario: we become a perceived target as we confront a camera. The awareness of being watched does not only acknowledge the existence of audience but also causes an unintentional display, or even a performance, of ourselves. The simple act of posing in front of mirror may lead to countless thoughts, all of which direct to one particular goal: to portray the “self” we would like to be seen. Exercise 3
How should I present my body to make myself look splendid/ confident/ trustworthy/ attractive/ __________ (anything else)?
Recognising the existence of audience, we attempt to deliver a socially acceptable image of ourselves as we are presenting our bodies in front of the camera. But who are the viewers? In social situations, we may understand who they are. But we may not know who will browse the photos we take. With the help of technology, images can now be circulated at an unprecedented speed. Meanwhile, human interaction is mainly dominated by the social media. Certain internet users (e.g., KOL) are actively seeking attention with photographs. All these have broadened the scope of potential viewers to an infinite level, including our real friends, acquaintances, netizen, and even strangers. They can take on the dual role of audience and the watched.
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The Spontaneity of Images In the past, when one could only rely on photographic films, one would avoid misusing them by taking photos cautiously. The development of films – even with the utilisation of one-hour technology that ensued later in history – involved a complicated procedure. At the moment of photo taking, it was unable to discern whether we were presenting the image we wished. And no alteration could be made to the photos even if they did not appeal to us. Digital photography, by contrast, has brought forth radical transformation. Photos can be viewed immediately after being taken. Moreover, as it costs no time or money to adjust, refine, or re-shoot, one can frame and portray one’s ideal self as one wishes. The Film Era The Digital Era Taking photos with smartphones
Taking photos with a camera
Simultaneous review of the photo
Complete shooting the whole film roll and sent to develop
Adjusting one’s gestures and facial expression Reviewing the developed photos
Taking the photo and adjusting oneself again and again
One can only wait for another photo shoot even if one is not content with the photos
Achieve the 'perfect' shot
As the refinement of photos demands no time, we are likely to change our posture and facial expressions as we seek to offer the image that conforms to our preference and the “aesthetic requirement” agreed by others. Extended Reading John Berger’s Ways of Seeing A classic writing on visual art, Ways of Seeing probes into how we approach art and the world. Divided by chapters, the book can be accessed in any preferred order. Four of them are composed with words and illustrations while three others consist only of drawings. Despite this, the number of questions raised by these wordless sections are no less than those printed with verbal content.
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Exercise 4 Conduct a photo session in a group of 3. In each scenario, take up the following roles by turn: 1/ Photographer With regard to each scenario, issue directions to subjects and take photos. 2/ Subject Follow the directions issued by the photographer. You may also come up with your own. 3/ Observer Observe how the photographer announces his/her directions and how the subject responds and expresses his/her own ideas. Scenario 1 Taking an ID photo Scenario 2 Taking a photo near a tourist attraction Scenario 3 Taking a “check-in” shot in a café Discussion After finishing all these sessions, conversed with each other on what you have noticed about the interaction between the photographer and the subject. Are there any assumed rules or imaginable viewers in each scenario?
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Participating Artist: Joseph Lee Publisher: Hong Kong Arts Development Council Editor: Cultural Connections Design: Fundamental Date: September, 2020 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced without the prior permission of the copyright owner.
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