supei's Digi-ImagingXperience

General comments on Biennale 2008:
- Works are stunning and impressive
- Strongly evoked the feeling of awe especially McCall Anthony's Between You And I ('solid' light piece)
- Impressed by how the works are being presented, the installation, the design of the interior / space to help contribute to the feeling of awe, impressiveness
- Really made me wonder how they were built because of the huge installation especially the architecture, Containart Pavilion, that house the exhibitions
- Amazed by things I never seen of
- An eye opener
- Breathtaking exhibits, with personal favorite piece being Op De Beek, Hans' Location (winter piece)

Successful piece:
McCall Anthony's Between You And I
Anthony's work is a critique of the space of cinema and arguably, conventional cinema/film where it is a passive activity, involving the audiences as only mere onlookers. Thus, he attempts to create film as active by providing opportunities for the audience to interact with film through using 'solid light' film. That is, "a film projection of a line of light given physicality by the haze between the projector and the screen" (Biennale, 2008). His installation is purely a "visceral encounter" where he aims to manipulate the physical experience in terms of audiences' sense of space, bodily experience to evoke emotions.

I was indeed extremely awe by his work even just by stepping into the walkway of the installation. Because it was so dark in the front and I could only feel the light behind move away from me as in proceed into the darkness. I was alone so I was extremely scared, and the moment I got to the end and look into the architectural space, I shocked and amazed by what I saw:

It was still extremely dark and the only sources of light are the two from the ceiling. It was freaking scary to step inside especially when you are alone. The sense of place is lost because of the darkness, you will feel as if the space is infinite. I was indeed sublimed by it. Standing under the light made me feel that the only thing that exists and feels real and is the space around the light and the only interaction one can have is with the light. Yet on the contrary, at the same time I can feel an infinite space outside but the existence is empty and not real if you know what I mean. Haha. And most importantly, because logically you know there is a finite space and not infinite, so the brains and the bodily experience is a complete mismatch. Truly a visceral ride I would say. It gave me goose pimples... And thus, I would say that it is extremely successful in evoking the feelings it want to onto the audiences.












Not-so-successful piece:
Alfredo Juan & Maria Isabel, Aquilizan's Flight
The Aquilizan's work is supposedly a portrayal of "community, reintegration, compassion & collective goals" (Biennale, 2008). Through the installation of thousands of slippers on bamboo poles, walking through the installation is supposedly akin to going through a school of fish because of the shapes of the slippers.

School of fish? More like a forest of bamboos I would say. It was mainly because of the supposed fish being way too high way to feel you are going through a school of fishes. And I would say that the number of bamboos and slippers are extremely impressive BUT when one enter the central promontory site the eye catching focus was on the huge container architecture instead of the 'Flight'. And most importantly, more than half of the bamboos were blocked by the architecture. It was only when I was reading at the description did I realized that there are much more at the back. It's really a pity. And arguably, the sense of "community, reintegration, compassion & collective goals" is only true if one reads the background of the installation, for the slippers are from the prisoners and the installation is put up by the yellow ribbon, if otherwise, one would not comprehend the feeling of "community, reintegration, compassion & collective goals" at all. Thus, it seems to me that the installation is not as successful in terms of it not considering the space and environment around it i.e. presence of the container building.








Comments on presentation methods:
Despite the disappointing installation of the 'Flight', the presentation of the installations were stunning on the whole. The installations inside the 'Containart Pavilion' is well thought out as each installation is given their private close up space, and within in each space for installation the space is in itself carefully planned. For instance the piece on 'Manas (Utopian City)', the wooden artwork is circular in shape and impressively, the whole architectural space was circular too and in 'layers' in the sense that at the very first door one have to walk through a circular walkway to see the first set of artwork, and the main artwork is at the core. In order words it's like a labyrinth, just much simplier. Likewise as mentioned earlier, 'Between You And I' also made great use of archaeology to aid in its display. Additionally, the use of space in terms of height by the piece really enlarged the size of space, already in itself subliming the audiences. Lastly, my favorite piece, 'Location', was created with a long tunnel, as if entering into another world and indeed, I entered into a snowy palace and experience the sight of snow. A pity though, that it did not feel like snow...