TAIPEI 4-WAY

ENTAIPEITRANCE adopts the point of view of vehicles traveling over various bridges in and out of Taipei. Using single-frame, slow-motion, and fast-motion effects, the image moves freely around the city streets in a journey of exploration. The filmmaker maneuvers between rapid, fluid camera work and detailed single-frame stills to capture the luscious dynamism of Taipei city and its habitants who are subject to flowing time and urban pacing. It is a contemporary symphony composed with the imagery and sound of Taipei city.

TRATAIPEIVERSE follows the main boulevard, Zhongxiao East Road from west side to east side to show the city and the people of Taipei from the viewpoint of numerous surveillance cameras and observes Taipei through surveillance cameras. It sees how people in Taipei are seen, and how their images are transmitted. In between intermediate wandering and intermittent fleeting, this piece searches for an alternative visual interpretation of Taipei and the visual awareness of its habitants. “What kind of city is Taipei?” How do we describe a place where we live every day?

Adopting a stream-of-consciousness style, ADTAIPEIHERE searches and documents various symbols and ciphers of Taipei, not only those of geography—the architecture or transportation, but also those of psychology—the alienation and anxiety. ADTAIPEIHERE is a sensual journey of nostalgia to Taipei. It expresses the complexity of the attached and the detached, the escaping and the returning impulses that many Taipei people share.

exTAIPEIit: Twenty-six interviewees who are in position to make the choices are under the scrutiny of a close-distance camera. Their ghostly images flash on and off the screen telling their personal stories and struggles, aggregating a revealingly collective state of being before breaking away again by polarized perspectives. One after another, identified foreign cities speedily fleet across the screen, clashing and bouncing, then, the image derailed from the gradually unrecognizable urban jungle. Together they construct a journey of a wandering heart full of contradiction and uncertainty.