【SCT】Year four student Chen Xi's work shortlisted for 2024 Oxford Film Festival

Xi Chen, a year four student from  BA Arts, Technology and Entertainment with Contemporary Entrepreneurialism in the School of Cultural Technology has been selected for the Oxford Film Festival. Xi’s work, titled “å...3äoŽæŸ ä ̧aå ¦ä ̧€ä ̧�虫�銝芰輕‰©çš„ï逧衣äøŖē» ́åŗ¦ē „ē” 〈 ē‰©ē „ļ1⁄4 ļ1⁄4 ļ1⁄4 Ÿ”.

This work is a live networked performance performed online in 2023 as part of the Networked Performance Festival created and run by students on the module CAT206TC Technology and Performance. The work centers around the theme of "Wall", a video in which "I" take on the role of a creature above the three-dimensional world, seemingly trying to communicate with people off-screen. The title of the project is a patchwork of Chinese, English and Hebrew words that have been miscoded in the computer processing environment. For Xi Chen, the monitor screen is a visual representation of the "Wall". Because the image compresses whatever it contains into a surface, the screen naturally becomes the borderline between dimensions.

The whole process of the viewer looking at the work is an abstract presentation of "Wall". The behaviour of "I" and the presentation of the project becomes a factor of influence in the whole process, subtly disturbing those who see it. Even the slightest emotion, attention, movement and so on, but none of this will be fed back to "I".

The process of production is mainly about preliminary research, defining the theme, thinking about the style, recording, voice-over production, editing, and finally finishing the live broadcast randomly. It's a step-by-step process that leads to the finish line. This project was an opportunity for Xi to continue making experimental videos. After really practicing, she realized how fascinating images are. A lot of things are blurred here, blurred but in motion, rough or astringent, which can make people want to look for more.

A few days before Xi Chen was to submit (live streaming) this project, her grandfather passed away. In the rush of the trip, some of the content in the project was done on the high-speed rail. While producing these contents, it suddenly occurred to her that Wall's interpretation turned out to be reducible to life and death as well. The reality and the unfinished project formed a weird circle that encircled Xi as the weaver, and in the process, the identity of the project and the creator was reversed. And it induced Xi to begin to re-examine the relationship between “I” and the work.