D-Normal/V-essay, an on-line video zine: Issues 4 (April 2022) and issues 5 (May 2022)

Issue 4 and 5 of D-Normal/V-Essay (Dn/Ve) supported by the Jockey Club through the Hong Kong Arts Development sustained the project's mission commitment and the productivity of the platform.

"D-Normal/V-Essay" (Dn/Ve) is an English-language on-line video zine platform with bi-lingual presentation produced and executed by researcher Linda Lai, from October 2020 to June 2021. Dn/Ve is one of ten awarded higher-value projects of HK Jockey Club's "Arts Go Digital" initiative administered by the Hong Kong Arts Development from a competitive open call, with the aim to encourage sustained artistic creation through the pandemic period of isolation.
The award allows the planning and publishing of 3 on-line issues of video essays, which included (1) the building of a dedicated website for an on-line video magazine, (2) 3 rounds of open call for video essay submissions; (3) peer review and expert-guest jury with publishable review notes for selected works in every issue; and (4) interpretive editorial that turned selected works into theme-based presentation. This approach was designed to encourage free expression as well as less attempted use of videography such as documentation of art events, demonstration of a technical process and portraits of everyday material objects of a post-human sentiment.
The found themes of the three published issues are: "Ocular Oracular" (#issue 1), "The Ultra-Realist, the Extra-Ordinary" (#issue 2); and "Presencing ...Becoming" (#issue 3). For the initial launch of the video zine, Lai wrote a series of 3 expository essays to introduce the theory, history and expanded possibilities of the essay film and as minor literature in the digital milieu; she also edited an essay series by participating artists. The on-line publication project was also supplemented by a series of 7 face-to-face workshops and screening discussion.
As the grantee and proposer, Linda was also the General Editor and Project Chief for Dn/Ve, in collaboration with the five members of the Floating Projects, which is her on-going participatory art experiment.

Issue #4, titled "Voices from the Atmosphere," invited 24 young artists to articulate experiences of isolation in times of social distancing. Issue #5 "Assemblage + Spatial Calibration," explore Floating Projects' 7-year-old media archive to trace the story of negotiating and defining the nature and processes of an art collective via artistic collaboration 2015-2021.