Wednesday August 3, 2011 3
CULTURE
Making films without cameras

Workshop a cross cultural imagination space
By Song Yuanyuan
M
any commercial images
are forgotten
or insulting to the
intelligence, and
so occupy space
that should
be left for
Point, create with Collage
and the Undead Film
Photo: Courtesy of UCCA
thought, discussion and beauty. One
simple way to rescue these accumulated
images is through collage film. After the
two-day “Collage and the Undead Film”
workshop by Anja Dornieden and Juan
David Gonzalez Montoy from LaborBerlin, an independent film lab, at UCCA
this Friday and Saturday, you will be able
to rejuvenate these film corpses and trash
newspaper and magazine images.
Many of us may have heard of Man
Ray’s non-camera film made in the
1920s, Le Retour a la Raison (Return to
Reason), using rayograph technique.
Almost since the beginning of cinema,
people have experimented with ways of
creating moving images directly on
celluloid without using a camera.
“In many instances, this type
of work was developed
out of necessity. Artists
especially wanted to
create films but did
not have the budget
or resources so they
found ways to fulfill
their visions. Painting,
collaging, etching, all
this was transferred and
explored with the moving
image,” said Montoy who got
introduced to it at New School in
New York. “We are bombarded by
these commercially created images but
once we take them out of context we give
them new meaning.”
The beauty of the collage film is that
it is completely in one’s hands. It doesn’t
require a crew, a budget or high technology. “Just your hands, patience and imagination. When you do non-camera films
it opens an immense amount of possibilities about what a film can be. It is
also mysterious because you don’t know
what you’re going to get while you do it,”
said Dornieden. Through the workshop,
students will learn the collage techniques
for the creation of their own short experimental film. “You glue objects, or draw
figures on film and you have an idea of
what it will be but it always surprises on
the projector. That is the beauty.”
This workshop is also Dornieden and
Montoy’s first one in China. “You always
learn from your students because everyone brings their own cultural background
and personal traits, and there are infinite
ways of applying the techniques and
using the materials, so every time you
always get something new and unique,”
said Dornieden. They said they want to
build a bridge between the European independent and experimental film world
and the Chinese artistic community. “If
anybody is working in film already or
wants to work with film, we would love
them to come by and tell us about what
they’re doing.”
The workshop is in English with
a Chinese translation. Materials and
tools are provided , but participants are
encouraged to bring magazines, newspapers, or any images/materials they want
to include in their film.
The Sick Man cometh!
Express
Lacquer like that
Renowned South Korean artist
Jun Yong Bok gave a lecture on
his lacquer art and artworks
last week in Beijing on the history of traditional lacquer art
and the future of this ancient
art form. He hopes to work
with Chinese lacquer artists
like Qiao Shiguang in the
future. This follows Jun’s first
solo exhibition at National Art
Museum of China in April.
2012, but Asian
Kiss me, Beijing!
Chinese movie 2012 Comes!
held a press conference
to mark the wrap Sunday
afternoon. The film, featuring
stars from Chinese mainland,
Taiwan and Hong Kong, will
tell a story much like Hollywood disaster epic 2012, but
with Chinese characteristics.
The team have kept the plot a
secret. But producer Ma Haolun said it was not a disaster
movie. It will hit big screens at
the beginning of 2012. “It will
be a great way to hug the new
year,” said director Xing Xiao.
Broadway musical Kiss Me,
Kate will pucker up for theatergoers at Beijing Exhibition Hall
Theater for the first time next
month. This rom-com, in part
a musical version of William
Shakespeare’s own reviled
“rom-com” The Taming of the
Shrew. Organizers said that
during the four nights from
September 22 to 25, theatergoers will be treated to a classical,
musical extravaganza. Tongues
optional.
Global Times
By Xu Liuliu
It’s a pity artist Zhao Gang’s
exhibition only ran two weeks
at Today Art Museum. Last Saturday, also the last day of his
solo exhibition this year, many
art lovers were still wandering
among his four giant oil paintings featuring naked women
stretching their bodies sitting
on a table or laid on a sofa.
Zhao, who spent many
years studying and living
overseas, named his latest solo
show A Sick Man. It comes
from the two models he hired
for this show three months
ago.
“It was quite tight schedule
with only three months for me.
I wanted to show something
different. The two models
suffered from serious sickness
and often took a lot of pills during breaks. So I had the idea
of Sick Man,” the 50-year-old
artist recalled.
And the recent one and
other food safety scandals
inspired him to pay
much attention to this
society. “We can’t deny
the fast development
of this country. But
what troubles us are
other serious problems including safety
things from food
to traffic, as well as
other big city’s sickness,” said Zhao.
Zhao, considered
a representative
Chinese artist of
German expressionism, received all his
academic education
in Holland and the US. Before
he returned in 2001, most of
his artworks were favorites at
overseas galleries. Now he is
more focused on topics related
with China.
The new paintings explain
his thoughts well. The models
show their pain through their
body language, the same message that the painter delivers
to the viewers. They hide their
One of Zhao Gang’s paintings
Photo: Li Gao
sickness and behave like the
healthy.
In fact, in the curator’s eyes,
Zhao himself, a Chinese living
in the US for decades, is a “sick
man”. Curator Tian Feiyu said
in 2007 that Zhao Gang is the
“victim of that time”.