Project: bist du japaner
Multi channel moving image/ sound work
Date: 2024
I am part of “the other” in a foreign land, carrying an image minimized to my physiological traits–and the fantasies attached to it. I cannot help but go through countless questions to be able to get out of one of many moments of encounters.
What to be told about myself when the interest of knowing me limits only to bestowing the preferred image upon me? Should I shout out every single thing about me? What language should be used, and to tell whom? And who might be affected in what way at the encounter of this telling?
“bist du japaner“ is an attempt to reflect on and resist simplifications: those moments of being "the others," part of a non-fixed mass.
Through “bist du japaner“, it is intended to bring forward the intertwined thoughts and complexity of me in images: as a person of “the other” who tries to regain the agency of my own images, rework them and project them in the outer world.
With the adoption of multiple languages in the work with limited translation, the telling of “our-stories” of me and my family become multi-layered: on one hand an incomplete, unwilled storytelling not fully opened to non-mandarin speaker; on the other an attempt to look into the complex of identification in "our-storical" trajectory via a touch upon my families‘ lives as “Taiwanese,“ who, throughout the recent generations, lived through regimes with tremendous differences.
With the adoption of multiple languages in the work with limited translation, the telling of “our-stories” about my complexities as “the other” become multi-layered: on one hand an incomplete, unwilled storytelling not fully opened to non-mandarin speaker; on the other an attempt to look into the complex of identification in "our-storical" trajectory via a touch upon my families‘ lives as “Taiwanese,“ who, throughout the recent generations, lived through regimes with tremendous differences.
Multi channel moving image/ sound work
Date: 2024
I am part of “the other” in a foreign land, carrying an image minimized to my physiological traits–and the fantasies attached to it. I cannot help but go through countless questions to be able to get out of one of many moments of encounters.
What to be told about myself when the interest of knowing me limits only to bestowing the preferred image upon me? Should I shout out every single thing about me? What language should be used, and to tell whom? And who might be affected in what way at the encounter of this telling?
“bist du japaner“ is an attempt to reflect on and resist simplifications: those moments of being "the others," part of a non-fixed mass.
Through “bist du japaner“, it is intended to bring forward the intertwined thoughts and complexity of me in images: as a person of “the other” who tries to regain the agency of my own images, rework them and project them in the outer world.
With the adoption of multiple languages in the work with limited translation, the telling of “our-stories” of me and my family become multi-layered: on one hand an incomplete, unwilled storytelling not fully opened to non-mandarin speaker; on the other an attempt to look into the complex of identification in "our-storical" trajectory via a touch upon my families‘ lives as “Taiwanese,“ who, throughout the recent generations, lived through regimes with tremendous differences.
With the adoption of multiple languages in the work with limited translation, the telling of “our-stories” about my complexities as “the other” become multi-layered: on one hand an incomplete, unwilled storytelling not fully opened to non-mandarin speaker; on the other an attempt to look into the complex of identification in "our-storical" trajectory via a touch upon my families‘ lives as “Taiwanese,“ who, throughout the recent generations, lived through regimes with tremendous differences.
Thanks to：
Partial family photo: Chen Jessica
Partial voice over: Lin Chih-Yu、Lin Meng-Shuan
Guitar: Liu Yun-Chung
Life stories of my grandparents: Wen Shu-Tzu (my mother)
Dramaturgy consultation: Miki Feller
Still image shooting assistance: Pavel Polenz
Work Consultation: Adam Broomberg, Filipa Cesar, Paolo Caffoni, Marine Hugonnier, Diana McCarty, Lorenz Schwarz
To:
grandma 劉艷仙 (昭和十一年 1936 - 民國109年 2020)
grandpa 溫錦文 (昭和八年 1933 - 民國111年 2023)
Online Material Sources：
蔣中正國喪實錄 (1975)
排球少年 Haikyuu
利休(1989)
南進台灣：國策記錄映画 (1939-40)
长枪权三鑓の権三(1986)
英烈千秋 (1974)
Partial family photo: Chen Jessica
Partial voice over: Lin Chih-Yu、Lin Meng-Shuan
Guitar: Liu Yun-Chung
Life stories of my grandparents: Wen Shu-Tzu (my mother)
Dramaturgy consultation: Miki Feller
Still image shooting assistance: Pavel Polenz
Work Consultation: Adam Broomberg, Filipa Cesar, Paolo Caffoni, Marine Hugonnier, Diana McCarty, Lorenz Schwarz
To:
grandma 劉艷仙 (昭和十一年 1936 - 民國109年 2020)
grandpa 溫錦文 (昭和八年 1933 - 民國111年 2023)
Online Material Sources：
蔣中正國喪實錄 (1975)
排球少年 Haikyuu
利休(1989)
南進台灣：國策記錄映画 (1939-40)
长枪权三鑓の権三(1986)
英烈千秋 (1974)
bist du japaner (Mandarin/English)
