Door Games, Window Frames: Near Drama: Generative Cinema

This work is an automated multiple-window installation exploring mannerisms and formulaic structures in Hong Kong film melodrama from the 1960s. It consists of a database of about 500 movie clips. In the form of a 3-channel projection, the automated drama explores the mannerism and formulaic structures of 11 such films. From the viewpoint of contemporary cinema, the frequent closing and opening of windows and doors to introduce a new scene is redundant, a residue of the traditional box-like theatre'a treatment of space. But for this project, I have turned such door and window movements literally into a unique propeller of drama. As punctuations as well for emotive shifts, the combinatorial game I play with these clips constructs micro-narrative movements. The 'near dramas' resulting from the game are not prescribed, but rather programmed for open meanings as filmic elements freely align and combine based on preset algorithmic rules. As such, this work exploresthe use of technology and generative thinking in the practice of visual ethnography, a domain of anthropology. Rather than excavating, I argue that generative thinking directs us to both the hiddenness and potentiality in image analysis, thus an experimental form of anthropological research.This work highlights an internal self-generative logic. A computer program was written to apply principles of self-organization to 500 carefully selected movie clips. Each clip is assigned a number, each digital representing a value, including which of the 11 movies it is from, duration, types of shot size and so on, together forming the grammar of visual musicality. Combinatorial justaposition and alignment within each of the three image discourses occur in THREE movements (phases), eachoperating upon a different set of rules to achieve its own visual music. The 3 consecutive movements are currently timed to finish in about 20 minutes and will recycle automatically.Video demo:(1) https://vimeo.com/35050069(2) https://vimeo.com/48866866 Full Documentation:http://lindalaifloatingsite.com/content/interactive/interactive/NearDrama/index.html