outside

I have recently watched a wonderful 15-minute documentary about Beijing and aspects of the life of its people, titled "Outside". The director, Sérgio Cruz, explains:

"In China, culture and the arts are very closely linked to people and their lives. The street life in Beijing is a 24-hour live show full of music, dance and sports. Over a period of month residence time (September 2007), I was observing Chinese life, collecting 'road images', documenting quotidian performances (...)"

But this beautiful piece of film, that portrays the fast-paced and busy life in the noisy and continually changing city, paradoxically manages to achieve a wonderful, tranquil effect by avoiding speech, creating beautiful transitions and using an overall slow pacing.

In my view, the film doesn not necessarily focus on the city itself or people's actions (be they dancing, performing or excercising) but rather on the context of these. And he manages to give the Western eye a glimpse of the interdependency and -connectedness of people in a collectivistic cultural frame.

View this movie at cultureunplugged.com

we are postrock

Via We like that I came across a wonderful website, titled We are postrock, the purpose of which is explained in the following:

"Our purpose in this is to subjectify ourselves in the music and visualize imagery for the postrock community. We genuinely believe that perhaps the really provocative area for future musical development lies in postrock.

We record and produce these HD concerts because we want to capture the closest thing to what it’s like being at a live postrock/instrumental show - doing it all for the love and passion we have for postrock music and all its bands."

Here I want to share two videos.

The first one is "Black Dunes" by This Will Destroy You, where the beautiful music is matched by the stunning visuals of the video.

"This Will Destroy You are an instrumental quartet from the great state of Texas who play a cascading brand of cinematic rock music. Often compared and linked to purveyors of the “post-rock” sub-genre, the band has managed to transcend the tag and carve its own niche via a delicate and balancing infusion of electronics, strings, and an array of unconventional “rock” instrumentation over bombastic and receding harmony."

I was happy to see that they also feature Mono, one of my favourite bands. "Battle to Heaven" is like an epic tale, so powerful that it's almost kinetic:

"The band’s style of instrumental rock music is influenced by the genres of experimental rock and shoegazing, as well as by both the classical and contemporary classical periods of classical music, and also by noise and minimalism. We found that their musical structure reflect classical compositions & movements intertwined in a meditative narrative progression."

PRIVATE issue 50

PRIVATE International Review of Photographs has released its 50th issue, titled: "China, True or Real?" I have already received a copy and have to say that it is now one of my favourite photobooks. It features the likes of Muge, Zhang Xiao and my favourite, Yanming.

"In contemporary China, uncertainty about what is “true” and what is “false”, “reality” and “appearance”, extends from the realm of photography to that of existence itself. We often feel that we are confronted with such an illusory, ambiguous, unexpected “reality” as to lead us to doubt not just our perceptions, but our very capacity for interpretation.

[...] Perhaps the act of capturing and confining – if by means of a fictitious, illusory medium such as photography – some aspect of their surrounding environment constitutes a starting point from which Chinese photographers may consider it afresh, in more subjective, less commonplace terms, thus inventing it anew."

beetle queen conquers tokyo

Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo is a documentary about the fascination some Japanese have with insects. via Kitsune Noir

"Working backwards through history, Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo explores the mysterious development of Japan’s age-old love affair with bugs. Using insects like an anthropologist’s toolkit, the film uncovers Japanese philosophies that will shift Westerners’ perspectives on nature, beauty, life, and even the seemingly mundane realities of their day-to-day routines."

music

RT @reese: the right music fights the demons. electrically surges the soul. gets the proverbial ass moving. makes dreams happen.

up the yangtze

"Up the Yangtze" is a documentary film by Yung Chang, a young Chinese-Canadian director. The movie is about life in modern China in the Yangtze area. It mainly follows two characters, as they begin to work on board of a luxury cruise ship: a young, 16-year old girl, who comes from a modest family in a rural area and a young boy from a middle-class urban environment.

There are scenes that move the viewer by their cinematographic beauty, others are powerful due to the authenticity of the performances (my favrouites were: the prayer of the old lady, the father carrying the heavy closet up the hill, the young girl trying to proudly hold back her tears when her parents visit her on the ship). The luxury cruise ships were an opportunity for people to say goodbye to it, as it was slowly dissapearing as a consequence of the construction of the Three Gorges dam.

The Yangtze area has been subjected to immense change over the last years, due to the controversial Three Gorges dam project, the largest hydroelectric dam in the world. Its construction was not only extremely expensive, but it was aggressive and its necessity has been contested by many. The finalization of the project involved large transformations of the area, destruction and the relocation of over 2 million people.

To learn more about the film maker's inspiration, read this Q&A and/or watch this short interview.

Watch the trailer here:

I also recommend:

• having a look at Muge's photography, as he tried to document the changes along the Yangtze due to the dam project;
• reading "River Town", by Peter Hessler, who in 1996 had spent 2 years in Fuling, a small town on the Yangtze, and worked as an English Literature teacher. He delivers an extremely enjoyable and genuine portrait of the people and land of the famous Three Gorges area.

hana

Wonderful hipnotic experimental music piece by Asa Chang and Junray. It's like a mix of oriental and cyber sounds. This really has the power to transfer one temporarily to a dream world. Enjoy!

via David Valentim on Facebook

of mothers and sons

She's always been an airheaded lady but quite adorable in her own way. She never stayed long for a visit, after all, time was short and she had a dozen small things to take care of. Never tiring she ran around all day, like a whirlwind, carrying bags from here to there, her hair in a mess, her coat tied at the wrong buttons.

With age she became increasingly dependent. And forgetful, but considering her characteristic fuzziness, that never seemed particularly peculiar. She misplaced things and failed to find them, she needed help with transportation, fixing things around the house. She started calling several times a day sharing the same story over and over again. When confronted with her own disorientation, she remained annoyingly stubborn, refusing to admit her own weakness. And when she was exposed, she always covered it with an indulgent smile.

Today she failed the clock test. It shouldn't matter anymore whether she is strategically faking or not. It shouldn't matter that the tone of her voice sounds like that of a spoilt child. It shouldn't matter that you have to check up on her several times a day, that she embarasses you in public, that you have to pay for her medicine and mend her mistakes. It doesn't matter whether, considering your common history, she deserves your loyalty or not. Does it?

photo by Yuan Xiaopeng

related posts: Maira Kalman & Phillip Toledano's "Days With My Father"

dream of pink and a bit of blue

I fell in love with this shot by Chinese photographer Seatory: the pose, the pink of the room, the dress and the curtain, and even the blue of the mask has a correspondent in the tiny hair tie. My favourite however are the blueish and pinkish color reflections in the hair...superb!