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VIDEO ZINE #1 錄像雜誌第一期 / Ocular Oracular 聲影甲骨文 - p.3

Best Work 最佳作品

＜Digital Traces＞
April Lin
林森
18'15" | 16:9 | 2019 | HD
Original Language : English 英文
Subtitle : English 英文
Selected category:
[1] Object Lives, Object-logues 「東西自白」
Keywords
關鍵字

  • Research-based, Meta-documentary, Alienation, Post-internet, Experimental documentary

In <Digital Traces>, April Lin invites viewers to delve into the intimate intertwining of technology with death to gently investigate its past(s), present(s), and future(s). Death has entered a new paradigm of normality – of being felt, being experienced and of being meaningful – which is what this work seeks to understand.

“Death is something that all beings experience, perhaps the one universal thing that unites all living things -- across species, structures, and space. And yet, there remains a public hesitancy to engage with it, an implicit framing of death as something to approach as a tragedy, only ever accepted as the inevitable consequence of old age. At the same time, we are surrounded by death, especially as news of violence, illness, and conflict spreads within the digitalized and globalized world with increasing immediacy. Social media is a central pillar in the infrastructure of the online universe, and is equally pertinent in shaping the way we interact with death, including but not limited to the way we mourn, the way we understand the relationship between life and death, and the way we remember someone who has died. This can take many forms, from committing suicide on livestream platforms to viral homages following a celebrity’s passing. The ever-relevant question of death has thus entered a new realm of understanding, a realm that is normal for younger generations of people whose formative years are entwined with the way that digital platforms encourage or restrict experimentation, mutual support, and personal expression.”

CREDITS

Directed, produced, edited by: April Lin 林森
Produced by: Jamila Versi
Music: Reinabe
With: Space Inc （空间）by: Raw2.2 (Yun-Chin)

BIOGRAPHY
創作者簡介

About the author | april-lin.work

April Lin 林森 (b. 1996, Stockholm — they/them) is an artist-filmmaker investigating image-making as a site for the construction, sustenance and dissemination of co-existent yet conflicting truths. They dream & explore & critique & fret & catastrophize & imagine & play with the potentials that the moving image holds — for collective remembering of forgotten pasts, for the critical examining of normalised presents, and for the visualising of freer futures as, of course, imagined from the periphery.

To April Lin, video is a self-reflexive and cathartic tool, interweaving strands of auto-biography, world-building, documentary, performance, and the post-Internet, topped off with an inevitable garnish consisting of the other matters dialoguing with their brain and heart during the making process of each piece. Uniting their genre-fluid body of work is a commitment to centring oppressed knowledges, building an ethics of collaboration around reciprocal care, and exploring the linkages between history, memory, and interpersonal and structural trauma.

Their films have been shown and screened at, including but not limited to: LA Filmforum, MADATAC, Botkyrka Konsthall, Arebyte Gallery, Konstfack, Camden Arts Centre, Beijing International Short Film Festival, Tunis International Feminist Art Festival, Floating Projects, Underwire Festival, Chinese Arts Now, Lausanne Underground Film & Music Festival, and the V&A.

WEBSITE
創作者網址

http://april-lin.work
Jurors’ notes:

“‘Digital death’ invokes ‘digital eternity’. Digital death indicates the notion of death – that is, the closure of a person’s life-time – is either impossible (in the conventional sense of the term) or has to be re-defined. I could not help relating this to COVID-19 -- how the diminishing and absence of ceremonial closure (funerals, though mainly for those who survive the dead) moderate our relation to death and digital death.” (Linda Lai)

“i don’t quite see the correlation between COVID and this work. Still, it is quite a timely social media subject matter. As for the simulation of Facebook, it would be great if we could confirm that it was actually built by a programmer.” (Hugo Yeung)

“The topic of “digital death” has been on for a while, and it’s good to have a work devoted to discussing it. <Digital Traces> is not the most typical video essay. ...” (Hector Rodriguez)

“In terms of video essay, it is quite like those on YouTube channels that demonstrate an analysis of a piece of literature or social issues. That is why I feel this could be stereotypical. Yet I appreciate that this work has acknowledged those kinds of stereotypes, as suggested in the last part of the video narrative.” (Hugo Yeung)

“Whether it’s a stereotypical essay is not the issue. Classical film/video essays have been alive from almost the early days of cinema. So, it’s just a question of generational differences. <Digital Traces> definitely has an innovative narrative structure.” (Linda Lai)


***Overall speaking, the merits of <Digital Traces> are its timeliness, accessibility of content, and a great sense of intimacy.