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Non-place ･ Other Spaces 《隱城･懸浮半空》(2009) / Linda C.H. LAI 黎肖嫻

13m35s / color / stereo sound / 3:4 / video art, video poetry [to view clips......]

KEYWORD SUMMARY: city space, urban renewal, disappearance, poetry, the private/personal and the monumental, flânerie (walking the city), found footage, compilation, video art archive, visual ethnography, auto-ethnography //
關鍵字∶城市空間、市區重建、消失、詩、私/個人的相對於碑誌式的、城市漫遊、現成影像片段、彙編錄像、錄像庫、視覺民俗志田野研究、自傳性民俗田野研究

[Synopsis]

Non-place ▪ Other Space is a compilation video work based on my many years of visual ethnography whereby I walked the city and collected images as a personal video diary. This work compiles fragments of the city space in Hong Kong and Macao (1991-2008) to assert the possibility of many spaces and temporal sheets in one single framed discourse. It attempts the states between disappearance and emerging, visible and concealed. “Walking through” is a precarious experience. One penetrates, dives into, emerges and immerses in… In one moment, I see, therefore the video camera records for me; in another moment, the camera sees and retains, then I discover. Automatism leads. Virtual sounds I barely grasp in my mind, and fragments of a voice I have long forgotten, all blended into the placeless other space of non-place. Places and lived moments of disappearance return as the in-between, neither monumental, nor illusionary.

《懸浮半空》是存在也沒有存在過的空間。它在看見與看不見之間，於消失了與頻將臨至之際，牢牢地扣著視聽，闖進我的意識，其實不過是漫遊香港澳門雙城的有意無意的隨拾。有時，我看見了，錄像留住。有時，則是錄像捕捉了，我因而發現。然後，某年某天的一片聲、另一刻某種我腦海中隱約觸得到的音塊波動，我都隨手拿來，混進這無以命名的一片虛地。不假思索法的再一次。空間，是永遠在延展中的。我行動、我述說，所以空間。

[Concept]

Non-place ▪ Other Space is part of my continuous fuelled interest in found footage and compilation works, also an auto-ethnographic practice. I have been a fervent walker of the city as well as a detached collector of sights and sounds. Most of the outdoor sites in this work no long exist in current maps of Hong Kong, or they have never existed as practical, concrete dwellings as they were only impermanent sights of artistic installations. Video-making then is to renew the old images that filled my archive, also to preserve the fragments for their own autonomy and openness for signification. In Walter Benjamin’s light, “the life of a collector manifests a dialectical tension between the poles of disorder and order.”

《隱城∶懸浮半空》是個｢彙編錄像｣的習作。時間流逝，多年的個人錄像日記由親身體驗的個人記述，漸漸變得生疏，猶如｢現成物｣，於我的抽屜中給我發現，化為創作的素材，結果出現了這個1991-2008年香港和澳門城市的夾縫碎片的活動拼貼畫。我對時空的體驗成為了整理、剪接的脈絡 – 即眾數的時間層於同一空間的交疊、穿梭，過去的眾多的｢點｣和｢面｣，化解為記憶的洪流，又或還可整理再整理的影音庫。如班雅明說∶｢搜集者的生活，就是秩序與混沌兩極間迴旋的辯證。｣於我，錄像創作不單是舊材的翻新，更是從新的打開，給復活的碎片自行發聲的禮儀。

Linda C.H. LAI 黎肖嫻