Down the Rabbit Hole

Down

Hole

The Rabbit

참여작가 : Gianluca Abbate (Italy) Darae Baek (South Korea) Emily Downe (United Kingdom) Alexander Isaenko (Ukraine) Yu-Chen Kuo (Taiwan) Mao Mao (Taiwan) Jaxton Su (Singapore) Katja Verheul (Netherlands) Po-Wen Xsiao (Taiwan) Venue Partner: The Dead Poets

SYPNOSIS 사람과 장소의 관계에 대한 탐구를 주제로 하는 Down the Rabbit Hole은 국제적이고 실험적인 예술 영상 프로그램이다. 우리는 이번 상영회에서 낯선 환경에 어떻게 의미와 정체성을 부여하는지, 어떻게 먼 도시의 이방인으로서 낯선 사람에게서 친숙한 사람을 찾고, 평범한 사람으로부터 낭만적인 사람을 찾을 수 있는지 또한 바쁘고 번잡한 일상생활 속 탄생하는 창작열에 관한 영상 작업을 선보일 예정이다. 또한 영상을 통해 관객에게 예술가들의 서로 다른 지리적 위치와 개인적인 만남에 대한 독특한 해석을 보여줌으로써 사람과 장소의 놀라운 연관성에 대해 되돌아볼 시간을 선사한다.

Everyone relates to a particular place differently as It may trigger our senses, memories, imagination and emotions in a variety of ways. Consequently, meaning is often derived from a place based on what we identify with as shaped by our cultural and historical backgrounds. A place may hold the power of evoking a sense of belongingness and rootedness, which is fueled by one’s personal attachment to it. This is particularly true for places where we are native to, where experiences tied to these places often have profound effects on how we acquaint with another place we set our foot on. How then, do we ascribe meaning and identity to an unfamiliar setting that is disparate from our home ground?

Touching on the relations between people and place, the video art screening programme examines the idea of residency in a foreign city through the perspectives of contemporary artists from various parts of the world as they observe and interact with an uncharted territory. Artists seeking professional development often base themselves in unfamiliar places for a multitude of reasons. No matter what the intent is, there is always a desire for forming unique relationships with the new geographical location through meaningful interaction with the environment and its inhabitants. The possibilities of forging memories, empathy and meaning with an unfamiliar city of dwelling provide artists with the inspirations, muses and impulses to create, and in this case – experimental moving image.

The one-night screening programme gathers a varied selection of video art from around the world, including experimental short, animation and dance film that will attempt to accentuate each artist’s chemistry with their newfound abode. As a stranger in a distant city, how does one seek the familiar from the outlandish, the romantic from the mundane and the creative impulse from the hustle and bustle of everyday life? Through the artists’ unique interpretations of their personal encounters with different geographical location, audiences are encouraged to reflect upon the wondrous connections between human and place.

Down The Rabbit Hole

PROGRAMME

Happy Kawaii Friends Mao Mao 2019 / 09:18 Taiwan Happy Kawaii Friends is made up of all sorts of absurd animation shorts that present the artist’s bad taste of cute (kawaii). These animations also occasionally connect to current societal issues that the artist is concerned about. The artist’s name Maomao, which can refer to a feeling of eeriness, is how he hopes the audience would feel after discovering the issues addressed behind the cute animations.

Supermarket Gianluca Abbate 2018 / 08:08 Italy A voice says “I would like to make you feel nice and comfortable, and to empty your mind of every single thought...” Thus begins the story, with an invitation to make you fall asleep, in a calm, deep, and peaceful rest, while a chaotic landscape, crowded with people, sets up on the screen. The crowd doesn’t seem to have anywhere to go, but they are actually sleeping and they need to dream. www.gianlucaabbate.com

TOMMY Po-Wen Xsiao 2016 / 03:44 Taiwan Tommy lives alone and the same for the last ten years and he has a special plan on this day.

On the other hand, the dramatic film proposes an imagination of Glasgow by voyaging the city space.

ADIEU, CORPUS! Alexander Isaenko 2018 / 08:07 Ukraine ‘Adieu, Corpus’ is a short film about versatility of human body. Body is the flesh, the corpus, the frame for organs, the assembly of limbs, the collection of rules, and the limits by which we define ourselves. The film shows the body as a place, and not as a subject. It is travelling along its borders, groping the way in time through events, rather than linearly, balancing at the edge of the rules, until once...crosses its own limitations and steps out of the frame. The body physically dies converting into virtual one. www.isaenko.net Down The Rabbit Hole

HOSTILE SITES - Part 2 Katja Verheul 2017 / 07:40 Netherlands In London important sites and buildings are surrounded by fancy benches and flower pots.

Though these sculptural objects are not there just for the eye. The so-called hostile vehicle mitigations should protect buildings and sites of potential destructive terrorists attacks. The film focused on several hostile vehicle mitigations in the ring of steel in London, their ‘natural’ habitat and the influence they have on our daily lives. www.katjaverheul.com

honestly; a foreign substance in nature Darae Baek 2019 / 05:32 South Korea I was studying the relationship between nature and myself, and my appearance in nature seemed like a foreign object. This video is, therefore, a work of action research, as I tried to express myself as part of nature and escape the feeling of existing there only as a foreign object. Will the audience accept that person as a woman, or as a person, or as an obscure person? Perhaps they will see themselves as the person in the video. www.daraebaek.com

Better Emily Downe 2019 / 05:04 United Kingdom Better is a short animated film which questions the ideal worlds of a perfectionistic culture.

Exploring research through storytelling, the film is based in a fantasy jungle that acts as a portal for idealised worlds to become external. www.emilydowne.co.uk

Transience 10 Jaxton Su 2019 / 08:06 Singapore The space within us constitutes an array of memories, lurking around like ghosts of our past, which in a way, aids in composing our subjective realities and defining us. Transience 10 depicts an episodic memory through an interplay of surfaces and subjects found in different landscapes (real or imagined) that resonate metaphorically with the various ephemeral states of mind. Chronicling recollections through fragments of writings found in an old diary, the film attempts to evoke the essence of the transient self. www.jaxtonsu.net Down The Rabbit Hole

CHUANG CHOU’S Dream Yu-Chen Kuo 2018 / 05:48 Taiwan Butterfly Dream Parable is a philosophical theory told by Chuang-Tzu, who believes that it is impossible for people to accurately distinguish between reality and illusion. When a person thinks that there is a clear difference between reality and illusion, there might actually be underlying problems.The main idea of ​​the story is that Chuang-Tzu dreamed one day that he had become a butterfly. After waking up, he found himself still Chuang-Tzu, so he was confused whether he was a butterfly who became Chuang-Tzu or he was Chuang-Tzu who became a butterfly in his dream. Here, Chuang-Tzu raised a philosophical question - how do people get to know what is real?

CURATORS

Jaxton Su Singapore

Nien-Ting Chen Taiwan

Jaxton Su (b. 1988, Singapore) is an independent visual artist and curator. He is also an adjunct lecturer at Nanyang Technological University (NTU). He graduated with a Master of Fine Art from The Glasgow School of Art, UK and a Bachelor of Fine Arts from NTU, Singapore.

Since then, he has been actively working on various art, curatorial, educational and community-based projects in various countries. His research interest include geology, psychology and their relation to social and everyday issues. Through his various ventures, he strives to create engaging and immersive experiences that would encourage enthusiasm in the arts for the masses. www.jaxtonsu.net

Nien-Ting Chen graduated with a MFA from the Glasgow School of Art, UK and a BFA in Material Arts and Design from Tainan National University of Arts. She is currently pursuing her PhD in Liverpool School Of Art & Design at LJMU, Liverpool, UK. In her career, she works between London and Taipei for visual art and curatorial projects.

Her research position is about seeking opportunities to cohere and integrate artists and artworks from different background, cultures and education while thinking about contemporary art’s possibilities of becoming universal. She would use the concept of “China’s spirit in the west”, in which she utilizes Western methodology in her research and artistic development, while integrating contexts from her origins and personal cultural experiences. www.nientingchen.com

Down The Rabbit Hole