Natalie Chao / Wilderness poems #5: “the land of logs”
Wilderness Poems #5, image & text by Manifesto 2 artist Natalie Chao 錄像宣言2創作人趙芷妮《荒野詩》系列作品 5.
Michael Leung / ON LAND 12: Pre-existing Conditions 「在地」十二：既有狀況
In these COVID-19 days, “underlying conditions” undermine those with chronic diseases in fighting the virus. Rather than a sheer physiological condition, Michael Leung quotes Rene Gabri: what are considered pre-existing conditions are “those imposed on people by capitalism and the state, making some more vulnerable than others (during the pandemic).” What are the possibilities of being immune not just a personal matter but a collective act?「本有」狀況？「既有」狀態？還是「固有」狀態？梁志剛在英回顧法國行程的經驗，體悟藝術家 Rene Gabri 的申述：既有狀態其實是資本主義和國家政府加諸我們身上的，其結果是有些人總比另一些人「脆弱」，例如在疫情高漲的時候。如是，「既有」的，因政策管治的上綱下達，便成了「固有」的境況。往下想，「免疫」或「免疫系統」的出現，是否可以超越「個人」層面而成為「協作」的、社區群體的？
The Ventriloquists 20. A narrative pictogram for Red Balloon 《紅氣球》解放路線圖
The pictograms for this 101 moving image classic show more than just the exemplary precision of continuity editing and a classical 3-act structure in plotting. These pictograms function as analytical tools to show how the intensifying bond between the boy and the balloon evolves; to superimpose the 1955-56 location of the film Red Balloon onto the contemporary map of Paris, … and to single out the swerving energies and roughening emotions of the story world in mood-board like representation.《紅氣球》是學過活動影像拍攝的入門經典，或許是這樣，我們可能錯過了敘事藝術上的微細質感。氣球於小孩的動人關係不用質疑了，可是甚麼叫我們感動？這裡四個圖形分析，從唯物的層面揭示創作者的藝術心思，著我們不再輕易走漏眼。
The Ventriloquists 19. on nonsense in Svankmajer’s Jabberwocky (1971) by Steven Tsang 有關「物件」的動畫，打開怪趣無釐頭之門，打開文明歷史規範的一些「真相」
An assembly line of human figures grinding human figures for food, dolls feed dolls, doll eats dolls. Ironing, flattering, being dressed, being cut up, being tamed… Beyond Svankmajer’s dramatization of carnivorous acts, Steven Tsang sees the politics of nonsense, which the animator structured against the paradigm of human civilization. The animator wants us to see differently, and asks a different sort of questions in following a narrative unique to his use of stop-motion animation. 看到喂小娃娃的大娃娃就知道是女的，看到舞動的水手裝就自動知道是男的。再看下去，人吃人，有血有肉的黑貓時不時推倒積木，一面是歷史砌圖，另一面是迷宮的路線…最終，它被鎖在籠裏動彈不得。屋子裡一個「人」也沒有，卻充滿了人類的活動。物件長年累月吸收了人類強加它們身上的「用途」、「價值」，也穿背著人類的規範，像鬼魅的模仿著我們的「正常」活動。曾俊良看到歷史、文明、性別的社會結構。能看到，因為看穿了動畫大師史文梅耶以物件為本的獨特敘事結構和跨媒想像。
The Ventriloquists 18. Love Earth in 3 photographs 愛地球？三段循環。
A set of 3 black-and-white photographs on light-boxes speaks of Harmanjeet Singh’s warning on our destruction of the world. It’s a closed circuit, the looping of disasters: personal life-style, environmental pollution, illness and viral infection, extinction of the species, the world’s future… at Ventriloquists…Thinking narratively, 4-19 July 2020. 三張黑白照，串通個人、環境、體內、疾病、地球的未來。因與果是循環。
Ryan Chung / let the mind speak 4: Twenty-two: reflection on experiences, a starting point 「思維自說自話」4 – 反照經驗，就這樣開始可以嗎？
You are twenty-two, or you could be 24, 30 or just 16. Emotions often escape words, but writing the act preserves that moment of struggling to give sentiments an outfit. Keep writing: let realities come through the cracks of grammatical and syntactic fabrics. 確定是22歲，或許24， 30；16歲可以嗎？情緒和感覺往往挑戰文字的限度；裹不住，盛載又不完全。只有「寫」，作為行動，以「演」為述。抓著那個時刻，殘酷的現實或許找到那片刻的機會破裂縫而迅出。
The Ventriloquists 17. Narrative pictograms for 2 animation pictures: Use Instructions, The Streets 動畫敘事掩眼法。兩個例子。
Caroline Leaf’s The Street shows montage at work by abolishing the shot-to-shot editing system of continuity. Guido Manuli’s Use Instructions is a series of synecdoche through which we are dragged down to hell to the final destruction of Earth. Both animation pictures play with the 3-act structure dramatic conventions. Two narrative pictograms augment what is just beneath the surface of pleasing imaging. 動畫的敘事法花枝招展，起承轉合是借用觀眾熟識的架構安置觀眾，看真是掩眼法。《街道》以水彩的流動取締了傳統分鏡的敘事法，鏡頭接合的文法銷毀，蒙太奇的效果卻豐盈漲滿，記憶的行動成了一場戲。《用家指南》的舉寓令人捧腹大笑，狂笑後往未來看，是希望的滅絕，地球成了渣滓糞便，是誰開始的超級玩笑？
The Ventriloquists 16. Narrative pictograms: Inception, Flowers of Shanghai… 時空囊的兩個形態：《潛行凶間》、《海上花》
Narrative pictograms’ view on two kinds of time and space — the brothel as chronotope, timeless space (Flowers of Shanghai), and nested realities in the virtual worlds of the mind as dreamwork (Inception) — presented at Ventriloquists…Thinking Narratively, 4-19 July 2020. 如果敘事法的性質是時空的呈現以至再組織，進而擴展我們對存在的認知，那麼敘述圖形是另一種實驗性的創作，就是動用跨媒的資源去尋找語言或純影音未能盡興的展陳。《潛行凶間》和《海上花》是兩個截然不同的時空構圖；前者踏進夢的潛意識的禁地，化之為慾望的戲劇舞台，後者則專注現象學的濃密經營，時間一點一滴，一舉手一投足，吃喝閒話家常，紛陳世事，時間停留在這裡、此刻，摺疊勾連，並不向前。
Michael Leung / ON LAND 11: Internal Power 「在地」十一：內部能量，內化了的創傷
Prolonged and internalized trauma yields internal power, not so much hidden as unnameable emotions, but exteriorized as solidarity, against evacuation in the name of progress, and transcending national boundaries… Hong Kong, France. Wang Chau, Notre-Dame-des-Landes.
The Ventriloquists 15. Snow White and Monkey King 黑白白雪公主。奇幻七彩500年的孫悟空。
The pictogram method was applied to the reading and reconstructing of various commercial heats, including the pre-Disney 1933 animation classic on Snow White and Pandora’s Box featuring Stephen Chow, resulting in various works, three of them shown at the exhibition The Ventriloquists…Thinking Narratively (4-19 July 2020) at Floating Projects. 《腹語系：微敘思考》展場中，有三個圖形轉化的作品，選擇了兩個商業收益叫好的作品 — 迪士尼《白雪公主》面世前，費里沙創作的黑白動畫，還有周星馳的《西遊記之月光寶盒》。
