5. Detournement / Diversions 繞道遊
There is nothing abstract about power and control. The Situationists in the 1970s practiced “drifting” as an interventive measure to overcome the highly managed and restricted concrete capitalist urban space. Drifting challenges the self-assured, authorial flaneur portrayed by Walter Benjamin in the 1930s. Rather than regaining full subjectivities of the latter, S.I. drifting assumes temporary bodily presence to be wandering in order to step outside routine, to re-experience the familiar for its estrangement. Drifting highlights chance encounters, the opening up of our senses in order to discover and to unveil. It is thus a research method that invites us to encounter power and control as practical spatial arrangements and the possibilities of our physical mobility to generate new knowledge. Diversion is concrete activities, and very much the starting point of critical research, fully entrenched in everyday activities and the many ways we have been interpellated as citizens. How does walking entitle us to the encounter of power? But diversion (detournement) is far more than just walking. What do objects that fill up our quotidian space tell us about the omnipresence of power? What about popular media artefacts? And what about the language games embedded in our everyday conversation? What are the concrete actions available to us? These are questions the video essays in this session contemplate.
權力操控一點也不抽象。法國出土的國際情境主義把強調主體的「漫遊」（班雅明）推至「去」／「化」主體的批判極限 -- 「遊走」肯定為偏離常規的實驗性活動，為了發現、揭開，是一種「繞道」的批評方法，除了行走（用身體去佔據空間），也包括在觀察、分析、論述上的繞道。最尋常的就越是繞道的起點。實驗性的思考翻開的是日常具體的事物 -- 衣食住行，以至一切模塑我們的日常操作的安排、呼喚。或許，操控的照妖練習，就從環看身邊的閒常細物開始，也可以從充斥著我們視野和聲境的影音媒體產物開始，或裹藏著論述遊戲的日常語言操作，進行繞道與偏離。
- Mapping, Retracing, Cityscape
- 製圖, 回溯, 城市景觀
Jurors’ notes:
I found this work quite interesting as it allows me to build a relation to the video and at the same time extend my understanding of Tsai Mingliang’s original film. It also reminds me of how to extend and further contextualize a movie. (WONG Fei-pang)
It reminds me of the book World Film Locations: Hong Kong (2013, Intellect Books), which Linda did with Kimburley Choi). I have not watched Vive L'Amour 《愛情萬歲》, but I like the video for its attempt to deconstruct a movie location (拆解電影場景). (Hoi Wong)
I haven’t seen Tsai’s work. What I like is its presentation of using Google Map only. This approach results in subduing emotions and yet by doing that it takes the work to a higher level of emotional impact. (John Chow)
From the video I saw the changes brought by the development of the city. (Linda Lai)
- Black Lives Matter, Charles Tilly, Semiotics, Protest, Spinning
- 符號學, 抗議 , 巡迴發放
Jurors’ notes:
I think this piece and What Could Power Look Like have the same tone but are very different. This one has a more artsy look. (WONG Fei-pang)
I agree with Fei-pang that spinning is more like personal sharing whereas “power” is more authoritative. (John Chow)
What Can Spinning Be reminds me of Sesame Street I watched when I was young. It is full of generative gestures. (Linda Lai)
- Foucault, Semiotics, Metaphor, Power
- 米歇爾·福柯, 符號學 , 隱喻, 權力
He is currently undertaking a practice based PhD at Kingston School of Art where his research is looking at power relations and emotional states in performance and video.
He was an Open School East Associate in 2014; he founded The Bad Vibes Club, which is a forum for research into negative states, runs Radio Anti with Ross Jardine, and collaborates with Ben Jeans Houghton as the ARKA group. He lives and works in London.
Jurors’ notes:
It’s full of fun. I like this piece more than Spin, another piece by the same author. The “metaphors” he uses show how images could strengthen a narrative in multiple ways. (WONG Fei-pang)
I think “what power looks like” is a much better question than “what is power?” as the answers could be so different. (Hoi Wong)
JUROR'S SPECIAL MENTION
評審特别表揚
- Distancing
- 疏遠
CHENG Kui-sum has recently been living like an outsider, moving from the Northern District of Hong Kong, where he had lived for more than ten years, to the Southern District, where he feels better than before. But when he thinks of the cat at his home in Fanling and the graduation project he has been working on, he feels very sad. Cheng is in his fourth year at the School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong.
LAU Sai-wing, born in Hong Kong, graduated from the School of Creative Media, the City University of Hong Kong, focuses on film and installation art. Currently working in arts education, Lau seeks to encounter himself and others through art, to see how people face and react to uncertainties and various issues of living.
Jurors’ notes:
[Juror’s Special Mention: WONG Chun-hoi]
I like this video because it makes a good puzzle game among the three co-creators.
Fragments of everyday life’s footage are carefully juxtaposed to re-presence the psychological struggle of how to position oneself in social-political movements. As events wander back as shareable images, we feel the same guilt and the same impulses to escape. Many unforgettable moments suddenly pop up -- though only as blurs and mosaics.
I especially appreciate the sound design of this video. The audio of the public announcement captured from the streets suggests a strong sense of the safety of escaping from a danger zone, though a very temporary one. We can no longer hear what was supposedly said or announced through a megaphone. And the distance away from the battlefield and safety zone is described beyond geographical means.
It is the reinterpretation of footage of social events. The work is not visually violent and yet its imagery is violent in a silent way, which echoes and reinforces the work’s title. How to document social political events? What is it that should be seen on screen? The way they present these images is direct and nothing fanciful. This work, to me, resonates with another work in this issue, What Does Power Look Like? (WONG Fei-pang)
I reckon the work’s documentary impulse to present social political events through strategized use of footage. I also reckon the potential risk of showing Venice due to its impregnated meanings that may override the piece’s whole concern. I’m happy to see that the footage of Venice is in fact nicely done. (Linda Lai)
Sound also follows a similar approach -- subdued violence. Emotions only subtly creep out. There’s a widespread resonance of “escape” throughout the soundscape. (Hoi Wong)