Music

Previz / Cadie Desbiens-Desmeules & Michael Gary Dean
Previz refers to a previsualization: a method artists use to create 3D digital representations of how an artwork will look when installed, often including computer generated people to represent an audience. It subtly reveals how integral the audience is to experiencing art. These images are frequently used to promote and document exhibitions, with the perfect artificial representation being favoured over a real-life photograph of people engaging with the work.

In Previz, the latest artwork by audio-visual artists Cadie Desbiens-Desmeules and Michael Gary Dean, this practice is taken to a new space. 3D modelling isn’t just used to represent the work, the 3D modelling is the work. The flat 2D screen on which the visuals would normally be displayed has been placed within a 3D environment. Computer generated characters observe and engage with the screen, sometimes viewing it on their phone or laptop or experiencing it as part of a Zoom meeting.
 
This is an artwork within an artwork, using layers and refractions to emphasize the importance of witnesses in making a work relevant and provoking questions on what the future context may be for media art.

Living in Dream / So Ho Chi
“Living in truth” was what Válclav Havel, a Czech dramatist as well as the first President of the Czech Republic, suggested, for the powerless to confront a powerful State’s prescription of a officially mandated culture during the time when the communist regime dominated in Czechoslovakia back in the 70s and 80s. It was a strategy he suggested for people to deal with the manipulation by the State’s propaganda which consolidated the power of the State. Taking this phrase to this particular time and space, where and when the truth is not apparent and evident anymore due to the advancement of technology and the change of lifestyle, it is frustrating to find out what truth is. Not only the truth of what happened and happening, but also the truth of what we believe in, we hope for.

“Since my return to Hong Kong, my perception of the surroundings and emotion changed from delightful to anxious and depressed. I feel no hope living here. If there is, it is just a selfdeceptive propaganda to cheer ourselves up for actions.”

If all the collectively, categorically agreed “hopes” are kitsch, is there a more authentic hope which supports my own action instead of following the Grand March in which denial of the hopes is forbidden? Is that just my cynical elusion towards the reality or is the reality too heavy that there is no room for people to pursue a little bit of lightness, dream?

“I find that looking at the sky daily is essential to me mentally as I did not feel the urge when I was living in the Netherlands; instead, I missed Hong Kong back then. Living in the Netherlands was too light, whereas living in Hong Kong is too heavy; only looking at the sky in Hong Kong, I could find a humble balance which gives me a small motivation to take actions albeit a very tiny, humble action.”

Living in Dream is a video journal displaying the author’s mind through speeches, dialogue between sounds and moving images.