Then<·>Now: Taiwan Experimental Film and Video Arts, Part 1

Looking for Siraya 尋找木柵女 (2013), by Li-Ming CHENG

Los Angeles Filmforum presents

Then<·>Now: Taiwan Experimental Film and Video Arts, Part 1

Sunday November 17, 2024, 7:30pm

At 2220 Arts + Archives, 2220 Beverly Blvd., Los Angeles CA 90057

Zoom Q&A after the screening with Chun-Hui Tony Wu, Ya-Li Huang, Tzu-An Wu, and Tsen-Chu Hsu, and programmer Cherlyn Hsing-Hsin Liu.                

Tickets: $15 general, $10 students/seniors, free for Filmforum members

At: https://link.dice.fm/af0e832945c7

Around 1960, Taiwanese artists were inspired by the exchange of avant-garde cultures from around the world and began to develop a concept of modern experimental art. Many works created at that time had a profound impact on Taiwan's subsequent art culture. The achievements in modern experimental poetry, experimental theater, surrealism, and documentary photography are still important today, laying a solid foundation for Taiwanese avant-garde art.

We must not forget Taiwan’s complicated history and geographical location. After World War II, in 1945, Japan ended its 50-year colonial rule over Taiwan. In 1949, the Chinese Civil War ended, and Chiang Kai-shek took his troops to Taiwan and began the Kuomintang (KMT)’s political rule. After 1990, Taiwan began the process of democratization and has been implementing the rotation of the ruling party up to the present day. In this wave of political changes, the most neglected are the indigenous people of Taiwan, and many stories about them have been left behind in the torrent of history.

Geographically located between China and Japan, many Taiwanese people chose to study in the West or encouraged their children to study in the West during the economic take-off era (1960s-1980s, known as the Taiwan Economic Miracle). After returning to Taiwan, this generation of students injected many new elements into Taiwan's modern art and academic research, especially in the areas of literature, painting, film, dance, and music.

Experimental films in Taiwan started around 1960 or even earlier. Many people found a connection with Dadaism or Surrealism, which opened a ray of hope for young students who had been oppressed by political history for a long time. They were full of disgust for war. They had also hoped to rebel against traditional aesthetics, breaking the traditions of China and Japan, and embracing modern art practices from across the world. With the continuous breakthroughs in photographic technology, coupled with the accessibility of equipment, many young Taiwanese artists have also joined the ranks of experimental filmmakers in recent years.

In form or in the application of language, the artists unreservedly or inevitably reflected the complexity of Taiwan's historical situation: marginality, obscurity, and multiple identities. Common techniques used in their works of art include allusion, symbolism, metaphor, and metonymy. It should be noted here that Taiwan experienced a period of White Terror (1949-1991) that lasted for more than 30 years when language use was relatively unsmooth or unfree (the Taiwanese people were forced to switch from Japanese, used during the colonial period, to Chinese). Today, freedom of daily language in Taiwan has been greatly improved, and it frequently interweaves Taiwanese, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and English, thus giving rise to a kind of decolonization, defamiliarization, or entanglement.

As with many places around the world, experimental films have always been in a relatively marginal position. Compared with narrative films and traditional documentaries, experimental films are often ignored, misunderstood, or not understood. Therefore, these experimental film directors have few resources in Taiwan, and it is not unheard of that there are even no resources at all. During my curatorial research, I found that many early works were lost or not properly preserved. A large part of the reason is that these works have rarely had the opportunity to be screened since they were created, and only a very small number of works have received the attention of the government or academic research.

This ongoing research project, Then<·>Now: Taiwan Experimental Film and Video Arts, serves as a prelude, and its purpose is to allow these marginal experimental films to continue to be screened, viewed, and discussed, so that they can have the opportunity to circulate and be properly preserved.

On 11/17, we will hold the first section of this exhibition, with seven films, including Priscilla’s Dream by Chun-Hui Tony Wu, On the Way Home by Goang-Ming Yuan, The Unnamed by Ya-Li Huang, Looking for Siraya by Li-Ming Cheng, Siren's Lullaby by Tzu-An Wu, Developing by Tsen-Chu Hsu, and Van Gogh’s Ear by Mi-Sen Wu.

Four filmmakers will join us for a Zoom Q&A from Taiwan after the screening: Chun-Hui Tony Wu, Ya-Li Huang, Tzu-An Wu, and Tsen-Chu Hsu. Moderated by Cherlyn Hsing-Hsin Liu. Translated by Sonny Shieh.

This is a unique opportunity for us to screen these works together. Many of the works have never been shown in the United States, or at least this is their West Coast or Los Angeles premiere.

Program notes by Cherlyn Hsing-Hsin Liu. Many thanks to Michael Pisaro-Liu and Adam Hyman.

Filmmakers participating in the discussion:

Chun-Hui Tony WU received his BFA with a major in Filmmaking at the San Francisco Art Institute and an MFA in Film/Video at Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts, Bard College, New York. His experimental films experiment with and explore new concepts of found footage filmmaking, film reproduction, cross-film formats, and the integration of film and digital media within interdisciplinary art. They are adept at utilizing existing film celluloid and archival images, serving as channels for reconsidering the relationship between self, medium, and history. He is the author of “Stranger than Cinema: A Study of Taiwanese Experimental Film” and “West of Taiwan, East of Asia – A Study of Asian Experimental Film”.

Ya-Li HUANG is an independent filmmaker who is interested in the linkage and extension of images and sounds. In recent years He has been involved in documentaries concerning Taiwan during the Japanese colonial period. He hopes to explore the possibility of interpreting reality in the form of documentaries through historical research and examination, and also reflect on the relationship between Taiwan, Asia, and the world. His first feature-length documentary Le Moulin won the the Best Documentary Award at the 53rd Golden Horse Film Festival and was nominated for Best Sound Effects Award. The film was also selected for the 2016 International Film Festival Rotterdam.

Tsen-Chu HSU received her MFA in Film at the San Francisco Art Institute. She is an experimental filmmaker and devoted to exploring the intersection of handcrafting and filmmaking. She also works as a film educator focusing on film arts and film preservation.

Tzu-An WU works between experimental film and its expansions. He makes collages with analog films, through mixing heterogeneous images, audio, and texts in an attempt to inquire about the constructs of (cinematic) narratives and the selves. He holds an MA in Media Studies from The New School, New York, and a BA in Gender and Cultural Studies from NTHU, Taiwan.

Cherlyn Hsing-Hsin Liu is an artist, filmmaker, and writer whose work is grounded in experimental literature, the conceptual avant-garde, and philosophy. Liu's works are concerned with materiality in different contexts and eras, as well as its transformation, symbolism, decay, and emotional resonance. For Liu materiality includes both living and inanimate matter. Through film, poetry, painting, sculpture, and other media, she reflects the light and darkness of the world she lives in. Her films have been shown at international film festivals and museums, including Edinburgh International Film Festival, Helsinki Festival, Festival des Cinémas Différents et Expérimentaux de Paris, Image Forum Festival, Japan, Istanbul International Experimental Film Festival, The Museum of Kyoto, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, among others.