KLEX Tropical Seasonings Hanoi Screening
Sun 17 May 2015, 7 pm
Goethe Institut
From DOCLAB:
You are invited to KLEX Tropical Seasonings Hanoi screening – KLEX Special Programme, hosted by Hanoi DOCLAB.
TROPICAL SEASONINGS
Total Run Time: 75 minutes
After Screening Q&A with Filmmaker & Curator KOK Siew-Wai
“Tropical Seasonings” is a special KLEX screening program featuring 12 short videos from Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, UK and USA. The program includes works from artists originally from South East Asia, and foreign artists who have traveled to the region and make work about it. The programme offers different perspectives experiencing life in the region: the residents’ experiences and the visitors’ observations. Featuring artists include Andrew Stiff, AU Sow-Yee, Azharr Rudin, CHEW Win-Chen, Debora Bernagozzi, Jason Bernagozzi, KOK Siew-Wai, LIM Chee-Yong, Maulana M Pasha, Taiki Sakpisit, WONG Eng-Leong and Wuttin Chansataboot.
LIST OF WORKS:
LULAI (2014)
LIM Chee Yong, Malaysia, 6:30 min
This video is about a group of Bajau Laut and Bajau Darat people from Mabul island, off the south-eastern coast of Sabah, East Malaysia. They have no nationality and are unremarkable from world population statistics.
GONG XI FA CAI PART 2 (2012)
Andrew Stiff, UK/Malaysia, 3:30 mins
Gong Xi Fa Cai, Part 1 & 2, is a two part exploration of a small town during the Chinese New Year celebration. Filmed in Mantin Negri Sembilan, the focus is on the shop house infrastructure of the town, as a backdrop to the celebrations of the Chinese New Year. As ‘modernisation’ grips Malaysia, and South east Asia, we are in danger of losing the heart of our towns and cities, as has been seen many times in the West.
GREEN CLOUD TEMPLE (2012)
Debora Bernagozzi, USA, 7:40 min
This video is shot at the Cheng Hoon Teng or Green Clouds Temple in Melaka, one of the oldest continuously operating temples in Malaysia. Watching people perform the same motions as generations of their ancestors, seeing faded photographs of persons long deceased, the chants, the smell of incense, the flickering light of candles – I was so immersed in that moment.
RUINS I (2011)
Au Sow-Yee, Malaysia, 4:30 min
The lightning speed of forgetting.
FLOW (2011)
CHEW Win-Chen, Malaysia, 3:00 min
Humans leave traces in nature throughout their life. Amid of pursuing their own good, the surroundings are often neglected and left to be swept away by the waves of modernization. The footage and audio recorded at Kampung Sungai Batu, Kedah, Malaysia.
MUD GAME (2014)
KOK Siew Wai, Malaysia, 3:40 min
Kuala Lumpur has a high density of construction sites, especially in the city centre. You cannot drive more than 5km without seeing one of these sites. They have become part of the city landscape. Most of the time, I’m quite annoyed by them. But this day, through my viewfinder, I’ve managed to have a little fun with them.
COLORFOOL (2002)
Azharr Rudin, Malaysia, 4:23 min
A little music video filmed in Taman Wahyu (Revelation Garden) and Dataran Merdeka (Independence Square/Plain) in Kuala Lumpur. An attempt to visualize Terry Calier and Charles Stepney’s ‘What Color is Love’.
16 X 9 CAPSULE (2014)
Wuttin Chansataboot (Thailand), 6:40 min
“16×9 Capsule” shows fragments of time and incidents taking place at particular locations around Bangkok. Camera observed different situations in various
conditions, ranging from trivial moments in a ordinary day to crucial circumstances in political history of Thailand. Metaphorically, each place used as background in the video is defined as a receptacle of temporal matters, exploring a Buddhist concept saying that everything keeps rising, standing and cessation. They eternally and inevitably change. Only memory remains as an evidence of their existence.
THE ENDLESS STEPS (2006)
Maulana M Pasha, Indonesia, 7:00 min
A town construction forcing the society to make its own maps, street names, and houses. So, can I visit you, my friend? It’s like when you go find an address in the urban areas of Jakarta, and you are suddenly trapped in a labyrinth where you don’t know exactly the roads like on an official map. It’s so difficult to find an address because there are too many pathways (or ‘rat ways’, as called by the locals) in towns like Jakarta. Direction from a friend is almost useless. Official directions changed often, and home addresses are no longer certain, but manual direction become useful to determine which way to go. A kind of ‘organic’ map created by people who live there. A peek to the living reality of Jakarta, the most populated city in South East Asia.
MIST (2012)
WONG Eng Leong, Malaysia, 3:50 min
A nation that is seemingly well-developed and peaceful, shattered by a mere demonstration of the people’s will. Why is the people’s democracy incarcerated? When those in power fail to address the rights of the people, should the people not contemplate and decide for our future? We only hope for our voices to be heard.
MEMORY AND RITUAL IN FRAME DIFFERENCE (2012)
Jason Bernagozzi, USA/Malaysia, 8:40 min
Memory and Ritual in Frame Difference is a work that was produced during an artist residency in Malaysia, which was sponsored in part by KLEX and Multimedia University. This work is a meditation on the complex relationships between ritual and public space at the Batu Caves in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. In a space shared by both devout hindus and tourists, the frame difference processing allows the viewer to focus on action and change within the recording. Electronic insights of body vernacular happening in mediated time.
A RIPE VOLCANO (2011)
Taiki Sakpisit, Thailand, 15:00 min
A Ripe Volcano allegorizes Bangkok as a site of mental eruption of emotionally devastated land during the heights of terrors, primal fears, trauma, and the darkness of time. A Ripe Volcano revisits The Rattanakosin Hotel, the site where the military troops captured and tortured the civilians, students and protesters who were hiding inside the hotel during the Black May of 1992; and Rajadamnern Stadium, a Roman amphitheatre styled Muay Thai boxing arena, which was built in 1941-45 during the Second World War and since then has become the theatrical labyrinth of physical and mental explosions.
ABOUT THE CURATOR:
Siew-Wai Kok is a video artist, improvised vocalist and independent artist-organizer from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. She received her B.A. at SUNY Buffalo, and M.F.A. at Alfred University, USA. Siew-Wai has shown her videos and performed improvised music locally and internationally in Asia, Europe, Canada and USA, such as Busan International Video Art Festival, Bangkok Experimental Film Festival, International Film Festival Rotterdam, Les Rencontres Internationales, Beyond/In Western New York Biennial, Kuala Lumpur Contemporary Music Festival, Asian Meeting Festival (Japan) and many more. Siew-Wai sets up SiCKL (Studio in Cheras Kuala Lumpur), an alternative artist collective with her peers in 2006, and organizes many DIY experimental video screenings and music gigs since then. This experience has led her to take up the role as festival director & curator of the artist-run Kuala Lumpur Experimental Film, Video & Music Festival (KLEX) since 2010. She is currently teaching at the Faculty of Creative Multimedia, Multimedia University, Malaysia.
Kuala Lumpur Experimental Film, Video & Music Festival (KLEX) KLEX is an independent, artist-run grassroots international festival of experimental film, video art and music founded in Malaysia in 2010 by a cross-disciplinary group of artists. KLEX aims to serve as a platform to introduce contemporary experimental cinema and music from the region and worldwide to the Malaysian audience, as well as to introduce works from South East Asia to other parts of the world, to cultivate understanding, learning, friendship and exchange among local, regional and international experimental art communities.
Contact: [email protected]
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