Question 1

Zoey:

So, to start off, let’s talk about your inspirations for this 45 minutes long film project, cause 45 minutes is not short, you have to have a drive to do this, and I’ve heard at the end of the film that it is a self funded project too?

Answer

I wasn’t expecting it to be this long! Until I edited the footage till 15mins, and realised it’s just the fucking beginning! (laughs) So by editing the footages and the details, the 45mins gradually formed itself. I could’ve made it a 1 hour long film, but since it’s a graduation show, I didn’t think people would have the time to concentrate on the film.

Question 2

Zoey:

Would you be uploading the 1 hour version online after the show so people can watch at home?

Answer

That’s a good idea, but a big problem is since the installation is four way synchronised, and I’m working quite a lot on the installation, it’s hard to efficiently convey the work with only one video. The idea began when I started to notice people on the bus talking, and I can overhear their stories, I can’t really control it since I can’t close my ears. The sound forms a sound collage, and a un-matching reality between the visuals thats in front of me, and the stories of strangers in the bus.

Question 3

Zhuyang drifting away:

I think I’m doing this work in a performance way, or a music performance way, there’s a lot of improvisation… My works also concern social functions, personas, alter egos…Before this work I mainly did performances for two years.

Question 4

Zoey:

I remember last time I met you, which is two years ago, my friend introduced you as a performer, musician and a tattoo artist.

Answer

Yes, my main instrument is Guzheng and I did it for many years prior to other forms of art, so I think my brain works in a performer mindset, especially after years of not working in the commercial film industry in China.

Question 5

Zoey:

How many years have you been working in commercial films?

Answer

About a year, to make money, it was mostly content for advertisement, so I learnt my way around producing videos, and see the world as a film producer. Making this film, I think I treated it as a performance.

Question 6

Zoey:

That reminds me of a scene in the film, where you and another person were having a massage session in an east asian massage house, with a bartender from a previous scene as your massage therapist. And in that scene, you as the director, as questions get thrown to you by the other massage guest, were explaining your film to the audiences! Breaking the fourth wall in the most unexpected way possible. In a way it felt like a documentary?

Answer

You got me so well! It is exactly like that.

Question 7

Zoey:

Haha, I remember as I was wondering about certain parts of the film, the film responded, I loved that.

Answer

That’s very interesting to learn! That there can be this conscious dialogue between the films and the audience, this is good to know. As I was making this work, I was definitely thinking a lot about the medium, apart from the narrative and the fictional body. In the midst of making the work, I started to critic it. What is film? What is production? What is performing? What is directing? So that is the reason why I jumped out, including the part where I talked to my cinematographer in the massage house, we talked about… What is this work about?

(laughters)

Question 8

Zoey:

Let’s go back to the start of the film, at the start, a bus was mentioned, and the crew started to ride the bus, except the only clue that indicates they are on a bus is the handrails they’re holding up, and instead of sitting in a bus, they were sitting in the swimming-pool. So my question is, why bus, and why swimming-pool?

Answer

So on an audio mixer, which we call DAW, and when sound mixing, we call it bus, like ‘mixing bus by bus’. When sound mixing, we’re also transmitting things. So in a sense, a person can be a bus, which is why they all have the bus handrails. And when they’re speaking, their sound is displayed on the side screen as audio data, so the metaphor is, when we’re speaking, commuting, we’re sound mixing. And as of the swimming pools, there’s a personal reason behind it—— after I had the whole structure of the video installation in mind, I had a thought that swimming pools are really interesting public spaces. While you’re in the same medium, but you don’t communicate in the conventional way.

Question 9

Zoey:

Not speaking to each other, but you’re touching each other through your shared medium?

Answer

Yeah, all sharing the same elements. That idea is speaking to my idea of public transportation as communal hearing spaces. What is a community? How my idea of individuality is different from the western one, being that I grew up in Asia, in China.

Question 10

Zoey:

What’s the difference that stand out to you the most?

Answer

With political parties that are separated by if they’re left or right wing. The way people are more connected back home, and here in London, since it’s an immigrant city, immigrants from their respective countries are closer together, but the sense of community of an area is formed differently.

Question 11

Zoey:

That’s what I’ve been pondering too, how in London people don’t really ask questions if you share a story. When I speak I have a habit of leaving bits of information out for people to engage, it promotes conversation, but in London it barely works the intended way.

Answer

Yes, I think my goal of the work is to capture all of these ideas, and to visualise all the imaginations, for example, in the videos everyone have to wear a special helmet so they can understand each other, but if the helmets are took off, the different wavelengths of individuals make them unable to understand each other.

Question 12

Zoey:

I love the helmets are acting like synchronisers.

Answer

In the film there’s a kind of helmet with two headphones extending outward from the helmet, the person wearing the helmet has a stereo. So imagine if someone wears it in public transportation, the headphones will be covering the ears of total strangers sitting too close to the person with the helmet.

(laughters)

Question 13

Zoey:

And they would be forced to listen to whatever is playing in the stereo?

Answer

Yeah, or you can choose to close your ears too.

Question 14

Zoey:

Hahaha, you’re free to close your ears.

Answer

Imagine if there’s someone with the helmet on. As the headphones have a fixed length, other people may or may not be able to hear it, or maybe they want to listen to it, then the boundaries between the initiator and the receiver becomes blurred, and I like how much it resembles interactive performances.

Question 15

Zhuyang:

Under the water sound travels slower, we tried to dump salt in the water to accelerate the sound, so we can film faster.

Question 16

Zoey:

I remember seeing salt in the kitchen, in the film they were doing experiments, and pouring a whole packet of salt down a tube.

Answer

Yes that happened before the swimming pool scene, they poured salt down the tube, later they collected the salt from the tube, and put it in the swimming pool, so it’s almost like they extra processed the salt, and turned it into something more suit for purpose.

Question 17

Zoey:

The end of the film featured the team in the kitchen working hard on their project, and as the film sped up gradually, the sounds sped up too and slowly the pitch became almost unbearably high, it was very uncomfortable to listen to, is there any story behind the ending of the film?

Answer

It relates to my interests on understanding sonic warfare, a weapon used by the US military, it utilises the impact of different sound frequencies to human psychology. Yesterday my friend came to see the show, she got a panic attack just by being in the room, so she ran out.

Question 18

Zoey:

Oh bless her! One last question to finish off. Mahjong, in the Mahjong scene, briefly there was a girl dancing amongst a flame, with a Hong Zhong in her mouth, I’m wondering what does that entail?

Answer

Ahhh, she’s the Mahjong machine, she’s a standalone character in the film.

Question 19

Zoey:

What about the Hong Zhong?

Answer

Hahaha I picked that piece because I just like it!