The guide will organize and republish the information and articles of the old account
Launch of the "Pick-up" series
If you have an article that you would like us to restore in particular, please leave a message at the end of the article
Interview with "Guide Tube" Artist Zhou Tao
On March 23, 2019, the exhibition of artist Zhou Tao's works, "Bronze Mirror Ridge", was exhibited at the Guangdong Times Museum of Art, which is the first research solo exhibition held by Zhou Tao in a non-profit institution to comprehensively display the creations of the past decade, and the first exhibition of two newly commissioned works" "South of the Mountain" and "North of the Mountain".
"Copper Mirror Ridge" is a parable: contemporary archaeology based on copper points to speculative rhetoric, conflicting terrain, and a series of anachronistic images. The "bronze mirror" cannot produce a perfect mirror image, it may come from the past or the future. As a self-naming system of referrals, Copper Mirror Ridge is fascinated by unfinished business in order to tell the unspeakable. ——Cai Yingqian (Curator of "Bronze Mirror Ridge")
Zhou Tao spent nearly two years shooting in the ecological park under the Kunlun Mountains, switching between the wind and sand and dust, the natural scenery of changing seasons, and the reality of people and animals surviving tenaciously in a state of ecological and political exception. For the artist, the action of "shooting" is an action to face reality, and the perception, emotion and memory of the shooting process can be transformed through the picture - the potential of the image lies in connecting the human eye and the body, re-correcting the real world dominated by technology, in order to shorten the distance between perceptual perception and reality. Human initiative is not only reflected in the transformation of the external world, but may also be used to preserve the poetic space of the inner world, and the coexistence of realism and romanticism has created the conflict and contrast of Zhou Tao's images.
Zhou Tao
Born in 1976, he now lives and works in Guangzhou. His work Van Caves was exhibited at the 2018 Rotterdam International Film Festival, Tate Modern in London and the Centre Pompidou. Some of the group exhibitions he has participated in include: "New Stories" (Solomon M. Thompson) R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, USA, 2016), "South by Southeast." An Extension of a Flat" (Guangdong Times Museum of Art, Guangzhou, China, 2016), "New Director/New Film Festival" (Museum of Modern Art and Lincoln Center Film Association, New York, USA, 2015), "Landscape: Real Image, Illusion or Mental Image?" (Guangdong Times Museum of Art, Guangzhou, China, 2015), "ON|OFF - Concepts and Practices of Young Chinese Artists" (Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing, China, 2013), etc. His work has also been featured at the 57th Venice Biennale, the 13th Sharjah Biennale, the 5th Auckland Biennale, and the 7th Shanghai Biennale. He has been present and has exhibited at the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre (Bangkok, Thailand, 2014) and the Paris Katist Foundation (Paris, France, 2013). He has won the 2018 Documenta Madrid FUGAS Feature Film Section Jury Prize, the 61st Oberhausen International Short Film Festival Grand Jury Prize in 2015, and the inaugural Hannevkins Foundation Bangkok Art and Cultural Centre Contemporary Asian Art Award in 2013.
Interview with Zhou Tao
Guide:
When did you become interested in imagery? What films or video works have left a deep impression on you?
Zhou Tao:
I studied painting in college at the time. In 2000, when I was a senior in college, I went to Shanghai to see the Biennale, and that was probably the first time that there was a place in China where in addition to paintings, everything from different mediums would be exhibited at the same time. Because we used to be very honest in painting, when we saw some of these video works in the Biennale, we felt that this thing was still quite fresh, and we began to notice this medium.
Logo of previous Shanghai Biennales
Did any of the works I saw at that time still impress me to this day?
I remember a Work by Matthew Barney, a man tap dancing, and then suddenly went inside a slimy hole in the bottom of the sea. A lot of his performances are engaging, and my friends and I have been there for a long time because an act tends to last a long time. Later, I learned that after 2000, many of these Videos and repetitive performance art are actually very common.
Matthew Barney, "Hanging Wire 4" Cremaster 4 (1995)
What was the thinking that brought you at that time?
I was thinking about this medium form, such as the space we are pursuing in painting, and when the medium is different, the image form brings something that you can not think about from the middle of the painting.
I think that compared to what we said at that time, traditional media or paintings and photographs, it brought a breath that was completely difficult to determine and difficult to capture, because it was related to the movement of time, you need to think about it, toss it, you need to put yourself, you need to invest time in it. I think this is completely different.
For example, a very quiet sculpture, you can use your eyes to provoke it, to despise it, you like it and dislike it, it is quiet there, your state is constantly surrounding it, painting can be like this, but this kind of medium work will have a completely different impression due to the passage of time, it is only once, it will soon pass, right? Unless you watch repeatedly.
For example, when the viewer starts watching an image, another time is constructed at the same time. Because an image has no viewer, no one to see it, it does not exist. Because after your vision is projected, there will be a reaction, and the audience's viewing experience begins with this co-construction time between him and the image.
You had a work called Wishing you prosperity in 2003, and you probably started to create it this way.
"Wishing you prosperity" was when I was in Shanghai, a company run by a friend was called a multimedia company, and they would help the company shoot some promotional videos and the like. They have a camera called the Canon XL1, which is quite big.
Their machine was still a very early HD first generation, and because we were classmates, I just held it and played. I didn't think about the images I'd seen at previous exhibitions, and I probably just thought the machine was fun and played with it, and ended up playing with it (laughs) because the parts were broken.
Canon XL1 was released in February 1998, the machine uses 1/3 inch 270,000 pixels, 250,000 effective pixels 3CCD structure, at that time XL1 powerful, outstanding performance, soon became the enthusiast's favorite, became the founder of the later X series digital cameras.
At that time, there were "body terroidal" works, that is, I learned a dog bark in front of the camera, because I lived in the countryside when I was young, and one thing, I liked to imitate the sounds of animals. Then there was a bark at the camera, a dog barking.
In 2005, the work "Chicken with Duck, Pig with Dog" was an experiment of sound simulation, what was the creative state at that time?
The reason was that at that time we wanted to make a specific, rural-related thing in the village. In 2005, I was just in my second year of graduate school, and I wanted to find some people like me who learned to bark, and then I went to a folk ventriloquism troupe. Go and study how they make it, how they make a different sound. Later, I met an old man who learned to call pigs, and his son learned to call geese, and the two of them were the most similar and powerful. The trees are our kind, like I'm a school dog.
Zhou Tao's "Chicken Talks with Duck, Pig Talks with Dog" | Chicken speaks to Duck, Pig speaks to Dog6min | 2005 Image courtesy of the artist and Vitamin Creative Space by Artist and Vitamin Art Space
They were in the ventriloquist group, and he only passed this job to his son, but later he told me that he had a bamboo leaf at the base of his tongue, and when the root of the tongue was raised, it could make some sounds with the squeeze or movement of your throat. It is also because of the help of external objects that the sound will be so sharp.
I found it easy to impress people because it was direct, and one of the interesting things was that I wanted to find people like me, people who could learn to perform this kind of voice, but it was also a tough process because some of them were retired.
How did you persuade them, and do they know what you want to do?
I said that I was a student of the Academy of Fine Arts, and I wanted to complete a work related to sound, and it was related to performance, but not to perform on stage, but in the middle of this real environment. When I told them to go to the park, they probably still had a little bit of a bad feeling. But when the old gentleman saw us and the other people communicating on the spot to imitate animal sounds, he felt that we were not doing well, and wanted to tell us what a better performance was, and then began to cooperate.
When the old gentleman imitated the sound of the pig, he was very serious and very dedicated in the performance, which made people feel very dedicated.
In fact, if you study ventriloquism, you will find that different people have different styles. I think the old man's performance is really quite sophisticated, and it is very admirable that he is willing to come out at this age, for example, it takes us about four or five hours by car to get to a park in Guangzhou.
At that time, There was a "Green Hat Project" in Guangzhou — green lights were given around the trees. Then we climbed into that park, which was very big, but could be climbed. The old man couldn't climb up, so he had to be under the tree, but because on the ground, he was in a very good state, and the effect was very good.
Zhou Tao's "Chicken Talks with Duck, Pig Talks with Dog" | Chicken speaks to Duck, Pig speaks to Dog
6min | 2005 Image courtesy of the artist and Vitamin Creative Space by Artist and Vitamin Art Space
Why did "Chicken with Duck, Pig with Dog" choose the roaming camera movement method at that time instead of fixing the camera position?
Because the shape of the tree is not so clear geometry, it is forked out here and forked over there. If you want to tour in the space of this tree, you must swim around. If you shoot straight, these sounds and performances are quite spatial, and they will be much weaker. And when your lens moves, the sound also creates layers.
For example, if he is far away from you, you can obviously feel the sense of space on his side, and I thought that the camera might move a little better, and because it is with the mouth and throat to make sounds, when you are close to him, you can feel this physical, muscular thing more delicately.
So when the audience sees and hears this thing from a distance, they will think that what exactly did you add to it? Wonder what was used to simulate it? But when you see people's flesh trembling, you will feel confused and confused for a moment, after all, this kind of imitation of foley is very difficult.
In "Mutual Aid Practice", do you usually perform staged performances according to the established plan, or is it all improvised? Or do you consciously design after observing for a while?
I think it's all, but the hope we try is to be fast, let's say three seconds can decide, that's three seconds. In fact, we have also made different attempts, there are some without editing in, but it is also very good, because this editing itself has a requirement, that is, to choose, you can only choose, it is impossible to select all of them. An editing relationship is constructed in these clips with performances, without performances, and improvisations, as is the case with Both Mutual Aid Practice and South Stone.
In fact, my own request is improvised, let's say we didn't feel it tonight, but suddenly remembered a little, such as our backstreet corner that is not bad. You need to go around here, look around there, for example, you go to shoot some cats, slowly become familiar with this town or this village, you have to react in time, but there is accumulation. It's not that I go on the first day and make a decision right away. I think it is this accumulation that actually makes one's consciousness familiar with this kind of space.
Zhou Tao's "Mutual Aid Practice" Mutual Exercise
10m54s|2009
Image courtesy of The Artist and Vitamin Creative Space by Artist and Vitamin Art Space
How long have you lived there?
This film should have been made six months later, and then we began to write the part, on the leaves, on the walls is the place where you can see the paintings, some propaganda department organizations in that place can draw forks, why can't we write?
Zhou Tao, Part of "Instant Script", 2010-2011, Guangzhou Times Art Museum
Guangzhou, you know there are that kind of big banana leaf-like leaves, and we write on top of the leaves, on the buildings and on the discarded garbage. For example, picking up some garbage and folding it into a paper cup, we wash this paper cup, and then make it like paper, write something on it, not so literary, is to think of something today, write it on it.
Zhou Tao's "Instant Script" part, 2010-2011
Did the reaction of the two performers on the scene show a tacit understanding, was the situation completely random, or was there prior communication?
The two of us are friends, he has a lot of free time, and this is the first time that I have participated in my film. So I don't think it's a special invitation, it's that he's still quite interested in this, so even if it's a state of playing together.
When we go to start this reaction, there will be people who are fast and people who are slow. However, it will gradually adjust to a frequency range. Sometimes I think a little more, but he also thinks about things, but he sometimes chooses to use mine.
My initiative in this village is that I first want to do nothing, I don't do so-called art, but we also have to do a little, and in this state there is a so-called film for the audience to watch, so it doesn't matter. Or we use behavior to create this time stream, suddenly static, moving, colliding, maybe I want to talk about more than just the movement in this image. It's not in the kind of perfection that narrates a movie, there's always a kind of thing that looks like a broken jar, but it's pretty good, right?
But it's still relatively quiet, and I think that just like my film, I still don't use this kind of visual violence, dazzling scenery, or the feeling of seduction, maybe it's still slow, the pace is a little slower.
Zhou Tao's "1234" | 3m3s |2008
The texture of light in "Blue and Red" and "Van Cave" is very rich, before you mentioned the circulation relationship between light, humidity and temperature, what is the subtle influence of this learning and creation experience in the early years of art aesthetics on your later works?
There must be, in fact, you asked such a question, I really think about it, because I studied oil painting in undergraduate, I don't like oil painting as a painting material, because it can be constantly smeared, sometimes it feels too thick, of course, I can also get it. For example, acrylic painting and pencil, first of all, the materiality is a little different, but I finally think that I may still prefer the water-based painting material and touch, giving people the feeling and feedback speed is like a timely response, can point to convey the meaning.
Screenshot of Zhou Tao's "Blue and Red" (2014).
What do we always say is a good painting? What is talent? What is a good thing? This question just made me think, I often tell people, I think a good work is always a little glorious, not that the light under the painting of the gods and immortals shines out of the clouds, but to make your brain clever, stimulated, can not be said to be an epiphany, by some understanding of things. Maybe he didn't like it at the time, but to make him think about it is to let the flow of time in his mind knot it. He's willing to pause for three seconds for you, and I think that's great, it's hard.
Some time ago, a friend of mine was asking me how these pictures were taken, two balls, round holes. I think there are too many in the real world, and if you really want to observe it, it's too easy, too much. In fact, we are all too accustomed to thinking in a self-hindering way, for example, people living in the local area may think "Shanghai, I know, I know", so that in fact, it is over, you use the mapping in your brain to complete all the instructions.
Curing.
Yes, below one temporal level is another new dimension, and below it is new. If you have this patience, I think many angles may feel different. But this perception seems to be more subjective than the self, but my work itself is indeed like this.
Including the new level I said, your self should also be updated, your fantasies, imaginations, because these things should be full, you can always produce a kind of mutual construction and connection with the world like watching movies and watching video works, then you and the screen, with reality may be built together, and will be different from the real space of the people watching next to you.
Zhou Tao's "Looking for Geothermal Heat" | Collector | 20m| 2012
After viewing a video work, the audience may have a pause, or three seconds, or an afternoon or even longer. Which way is more appropriate for your works to be screened in cinemas and art spaces? Or which way of presentation do you prefer?
This is a bit staged, and now in the past two years I am more interested in the cinema space. At the same time, I am also thinking about how to present this kind of space in the art museum, because the art museum may not be able to do it, and it is very difficult for people to be willing to stop.
For example, if a film of more than thirty-five minutes appears in the art museum, it is definitely a violence. Because you want to be ordinary people, of course, can completely stay for you for a minute and three minutes, which is remarkable, right? Because I watched a film for an hour in an art museum, I think this audience is very purposeful and wants to have a specific understanding.
The space provided by the museum is swimming, and so is the character. Here is a bump, there is a sculpture, playing an image in a small house. After all, its space is to give people a preset, is tourable. But the cinema is another kind, as soon as the audience comes, buys tickets to enter the venue, and the door closes. Sometimes you have to leave the stage early and feel a little embarrassed, thinking, "Let's finish watching it, and I'll leave when I'm done."
I think my current film is getting quieter and quieter, in fact, I need the audience to be able to lower their emotions to have this patience to watch. In fact, I think that in the cinema may have an advantage for my recent work.
But like some of my previous lines, it's the kind of art museum. For example, doing the early "Mutual Aid Practice", two people moving around, and "New York Time", others thought it was very good to watch, and soon Got arrived. But today I think "Blue and Red" is in the cinema, which is easier to get into. I'm like this myself, I sit in a lot of theaters and watch it, and every time the experience is different.
The only thing that came out of the state I was editing when I was at the Rotterdam cinema came out, and my palms were sweating as I edited. When I watched in Rotterdam, that condition, that shock, that big screen, my palms were sweating again.
You're in an art museum, no matter how much a projection, other people still have this kind of swimming mentality, so he doesn't have this pause or really notices the second level. For example, "Van Dong", I think it is actually quite beautiful and beautiful for many people, but it still has some levels, there can be a second, a third level, and even in the end it may cause some sociological or philosophical discussion, I also feel very welcome.
Speaking of space, your work "New York Time", and "Blue and Red" and "Van Cave", which are mostly created outdoors, are they completely indoors, and are they completely consistent with your own living state at that time, or with the state of your inner world?
This is not at all. I seem to have mentioned this adaptability in the middle of my text, for example, I am a New Yorker who goes to Shanghai, I want to adapt to Shanghai, someone may choose to make friends through work, right? It's also a great way to do it, but what if you're an artist? In addition to making a work of art, it is of course very good that you want to make friends or live, but I feel that I can't get it out, and I wonder if I can directly come to a particularly silly one?
Zhou Tao's "New York Time" | Time in New York |9m22s | 2009
What is stupidity? No talking, no doing, no thinking, like an action of a person who is working, using an action to complete this adaptive experience. This action brings a lot of contextual relationships that make you think in a different space, and the memory of many actions must take place on this line. You do this behavior, let's say stir-frying, and you pull a rope behind you, and you pull a rope when you go to the toilet. It won't force you because the rope doesn't get in the way, but it gets in the back, and in fact, it ends the rope at the back because my girlfriend interfered, and the bang was gone. In fact, I thought to myself, in the end, it will first build this kind of worm-like hole or other spatial state or something, more and more times I need to open that hole and drill it.
And in fact, halfway through, you have to think about going to sponsor (laughs), there are too many lines, and maybe in the end half of them will fall to the ground. Because I also in order to prevent my girlfriend from cutting it, the line is quite thick, and the thinner line is too easy to cut it (laughs).
Did you ever think about the creation of "New York Time" and how many lines you would want to use in the end? Or how long does it take to complete?
I can't guess it, because after the line is unfolded, it looks quite a lot, but you may not put it away, and these lines should add up to more than 20 or 30 volumes. Later, I found that because the cotton thread was elastic, after a month the thread was originally tight, and it slowly hung down, and many of them fell down.
You said after the screening that you bought a book on film theory, and you kept struggling with whether to read it or not, because you didn't want to learn it all at once, and this answer was interesting. Why is there such a tangled thing? What kind of books do you usually read?
Because I am a student of the Academy of Fine Arts, there is also art theory, I think the logical thinking is similar, for example, the relationship between creation and this theory, because the general creator is in front, the theory should be it to find each other, it cannot be an artist who must look for a theory when creating, it is certainly impossible.
Of course, some of the historical knowledge I learned while reading books, I have always thought that all the historical knowledge in the library is reality, I don't need to look at it from a historical point of view, I think it is a reality that has happened, as a kind of knowledge.
After all, I myself am learning this kind of visual art, I say "want to understand slowly", not necessarily to say to learn its technology, for example, I saw "2001 Space Odyssey", I will see someone wrote this no? How he understands, but often sees some theories that are very different from his own views. Later, I felt that I thought of myself anyway. Because different people will look at it from different angles, but I think my perspective is more empty, I don't want to think about it and have to come up with a social survey-type result, or get a certification, get an answer.
Stanley Kubrick, 2001: A Space Odyssey
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
I feel like I've always read books to communicate, like I'm talking to you. If no one talks to me during this time, I read a book when I want to have a kind of communication. In fact, I am not reading books to learn, but to communicate. For example, I sometimes read a book by Gilles Deleuze, which I find very exciting, so I read it more. Sometimes when I read some PDFs, some articles, the issues he discusses, including what he says, are a bit extreme.
Because I often act alone when I shoot films, so in fact, the books I read involve a lot of things, in fact, they are all for a kind of talking, or a kind of mental stimulation, not to say that I want to learn anything, I think I have enough today, I hope to throw away, throw away all the books, all the knowledge as much as possible, it is best to be able to "run naked" in the middle of the desert.
Zhou Tao's "After Reality" | After Reality | 14m20s | 2013
You say that you are "going it alone", a state of single-handed combat, do you communicate with others at various stages of creation, such as editing?
I think the only person who has communicated with me so far is my wife, because she has always lived with me, anyway, I don't like this, I don't like that. I was annoyed with her (laughs), and then I thought she was also a spectator, and she sometimes reacted to something in some way, and sometimes she could gag and mess around like this, and I was used to waiting for this kind of unexpected thing to come out.
Let's say she's too ugly, am I serious? She came over the next day for a cup of tea and said it was fine, she was like that, I think it added a lot of fun to the work.
"Going it alone" is first of all that there is no way to condition it, because I don't have so much money to ask others. Let's say a recording engineer, he also adds an assistant, and you have to be prepared for tens of thousands of days in 15 days. There are tens of thousands of possibilities that "Blue and Red" is done. And there is another point, too many people is actually not good for my way of working, suppose shoot a little girl, and then five people on, isn't this a group fight? In fact, we are mentally beaten, when shooting a little girl, you take a machine alone, you can also crouch down as high as her.
Zhou Tao's "Fan Dong" | The Worldly Cave | 48min | 2017
reciprocity.
I met some teachers who studied film, saying that this "provocation" in the middle of the documentary is not so important? You watch a lot of documentaries are shooting straight at each other, is this sense of provocation and oppression a kind of "masturbation" performance of documentaries? Is there a particular need for this kind of direct stimulation?
I also use the documentary method, but for example, shooting "death", really a person dies in front of me, I am not very willing to shoot him when he dies, but still what I just said, everyone has a different perspective of understanding.
For example, when I was filming "Blue and Red", there were still a lot of graves and coffins exposed in the black tree roots, and I photographed these in the middle of the image, which may feel very exciting? But I wonder if the things that you couldn't see during the shooting were also filmed? Maybe the camera sees it, but your eyes can't see it with the naked eye? So this thing is still quite big, people are very small, very humble.
Like I do films, I wonder why every time I make a film, why is it that I do it alone, or sometimes I occasionally ask others to help, but I am still very energetic, or it takes so long. There is a feeling that you are learning, the film is a teacher, from a month to a year, your learning is very full. The film is always dragging you along, or holding hands, for example, from the first month to the tenth month, I really didn't know if it would be filmed like this, or in a direction you could not guess.
The world is actually quite large, and it may be bigger than what we call the objective world. For example, if you go to Paris and visit, will you be able to feel like a new world? You may have experienced the difference between paris seen in a photo and the first time the body was in Paris, but today I feel that the world is geographically from point A to point B, but there is a node in the flow of time between them that I say, which is the key to re-understanding and constructing the world in which our physical body is located and the real cognitive world. Because on this level, you are connected to the new world.
Zhou Tao's "Tide" | Tide|13m45s |2008
In fact, you are not a "highly productive" type in terms of creation, will you generally consider or set a time period to complete a creation or a "project"? Will there be a break in between?
Now if I am usually invited to do a project by some art museums, I may be told three or four months in advance. But it's not that this museum project gave me the opportunity to start acting. I never stopped, let's say Blue and Red, Van Cave, and I set off the next day. My breaks may be for the kids to stay for a few days or something, I'm all for the time at home, but sometimes I take them along.
For me, I am always in this time stream, always doing this kind of time node work, and the ideal way is to be able to convert at any time. For example, after our chat, if my camera line is still there, it is likely to start a conversion of mine.
I can shoot anywhere I go, but I don't choose anything now. Encountered the fierce situation of "Blue and Red", or happened to meet in Xinjiang and immediately started filming. And I took the first shot and the first shot, and I knew there would be N possibilities next, but because you're in the real world, you can only move from A to B, and the next second you only have one choice. So I think it's just going with this.
Now when shooting or creating, is this what you want, and will this idea be "fixed" to the behavior or form a reflection?
"Internalization", maybe the word is a bit of a positive meaning. But in fact, it does not matter whether this is or not, the thinking of "internalization" is my concern.
You use the technique of fixing the camera position more often in your works, do you prefer to use this method?
I think you also shoot things, I think documentary I think there are probably three aspects that will decide this way, the first is a realistic condition, maybe you don't have as many devices like Steadicam to move, shake the action.
Second, I think there must be a reason to add another kind of information to the current picture, that is, the movement tracking of your lens, so where is the root of this action? Or what are you swimming for? I think the first thing that is certain is that this kind of action will cause a kind of damage if it is not done well.
Third, I think that a still lens may be more advantageous because it can produce a feeling called moisturizer silence that I often pursue. It looks nothing, but if you look closely, it seems like there is something. For example, this tree is here, it has not moved, suddenly the wind blows a little, maybe this slight feeling is a kind of "moisturizing and silent".
Would you mind if others compare your work to Cai Mingliang's? Because the relationship between "static" and "moving" may have been explored on some level.
Don't mind, I can. I don't think I'm a creator of the "author film" genre, I'm not constructing a screenplay. I'm just a kind of writing that's completely engaged in self-thought projection. I have doubts about this "authorship", and in reality, many times this film is pulling me forward.
It's not my mind that creates, it's not exactly the patterns I've created, and a lot of them are beyond my own perception of the world. So I don't think my film is an "author's film", which is too arrogant to say. In this way of working, I have to be humble, and humble again, and that's true.
Sometimes when I watch the film alone, even when I watch the previous film, I still feel this way. For example, if you meet an old man and meet an animal is a gift from Heaven, I think I still have this mentality, so I am opposed to saying "author film" or "film director" such a monopolistic, absolute sense of power.
Because I make films, the more I do it, I feel that the world is bigger, the more you can't be despised, the more you can't invade, you still have to do more and more internalized, the more you do the more modest, the more you do the more you feel. To be able to live with the world, to have this static flow of co-construction time, I am very happy for me, I feel this way.
In your work, the camera rarely goes directly to people, and some early works may have photographed animals a lot. When photographing people, it is often their feet or their backs that often appear, and just mentioned "masturbation-style stimulation" and "violent provocation", are you more resistant to this shooting method?
In fact, sometimes I also have big faces, such as shooting my grandfather or my children, and we have established a relationship that we are very familiar with and trust. In fact, as I just said about my creative method of "removing the author" and "removing the director", and my idea of "whether provocation in the documentary is needed" is actually the same kind of thinking.
Because I think the media, the media need to have a head, right? Need an event, create an event to attract everyone's attention, I think this is beyond reproach. But today, you don't have to pursue this, do you?
There could be other ways, maybe a way of backing down. I think maybe it's a better pursuit. Of course, I'm not saying that I'm completely against this kind of face-to-face shooting, you have a lot of such ways in the middle of "Blue and Red", and when I shot him, he knew it. In fact, I and the subject of the film are eating, living and sleeping together, but not so familiar, we are all in the street tent, once in this case, the feeling that people show is not the same.
For example, when you are particularly familiar with the subject, but you are still directly approaching him, people who are familiar with him, such as your parents, will still show a kind of restraint and discomfort. At that time, the concept of performance was actually completely changed.
I think at this time, I may be able to say that I can think about this matter, about this kind of "close combat". Are we just a "martial arts competition", or a competition that must knock each other down and kill each other? We say virtue, talk about the height of kung fu, Chinese kung fu is not to say that in order to practice, the final purpose is actually to strengthen the body, right? It wouldn't be said that we were going to kill people if we fought today. There is a realm of martial arts, not to really bring down others.
Shooting equipment from film, cassette, digital to 4K and even 8K, these creators' "weapons" are constantly upgraded, what kind of different impact on your creation?
I have also noticed this more and more in the past few years, and I have come along with this. For example, from the "South Stone" DV machine, the big, one-piece, to the later emergence of this small SLR, "Blue and Red" is Canon's 5D3, "Van Dong" uses Sony's A7s.
Zhou Tao's "South Stone" | South Stone| 24m| 2011
For example, why does Van Dong have to use A7s? It's because my first shot is actually a guy fishing there. The blue sky is actually a bridge pier, and it is very psychedelic. I think it's almost dark in the city, and there's still some light left, and there's a lot of difference that can be seen between the duel between light and dark. For example, the slag mountain is far from looking like Mt. Fuji, and it is also in this light that it is white, bright, and yellow during the day, and the crease is basically gone.
Sony has been promoting the A7 series of full-width micro-orders since July 2013
I think the light makes us reconsider and examine the reality you know. Before there was no one machine per film, now there are some new machines to study. The new machine is definitely somehow adding more possibilities. Now basically use A7s, when it was really "devil" like appeared, of course, now you see RED also has this problem, but RED is too expensive. I think the A7s are really cheaper and can do so much.
Before it seems that several friends specifically talked about this matter, will say that I used it so quickly in the middle of production, because the average movie person will be cautious, many times the parameters of all aspects are not in place, is it RAW format? Sometimes I just think it's okay, don't be so demanding, people compress very well, noise is also handled well.
So I think that making a film is definitely due to the upgrade of the machine, for example, the film "Van Dong" cannot reach the sensitive light capture without a suitable machine. In such a dark environment, the machine has something to react to you. Like when a person walks at night, you still feel his phone glowing, or another light source coming over, and then there is some other fine light. And the feeling of you looking down can also come out. In the same scene, I feel that change is time, and it is precisely because the flow of time produces the time node I want.
Do you particularly like the change in light during this time in the morning or in the afternoon and evening?
Loved it very much. But this time in Xinjiang is not the same, I photographed a situation in broad daylight. Because and the machinery used now is not the same. The light, the visibility, the intensity of the light, including the contrast between the darkest and the brightest, is very rich in layers and very transparent. We don't feel that way in Beijing or Shanghai. Then pay special attention to the feeling that if you are not careful, you will take a photo of a tourist on a sightseeing tour.
The thinness of the northwest air may also determine that the texture of its light is completely different.
Because my own work in recent years has also been around the "terrain", we are in different places to conduct different shooting methods of research and discussion. For example, we may also pursue a sense of space in the south in a very flat desert, the south has mountains and rivers, ups and downs, and who do we meet on a small road by chance? There are chance encounters, but the northwest is not good, and many times it is a horse Flat River. As soon as many people go to the Gobi Desert or the desert, they quickly go on aerial photography, and I say that's over, don't come, and you can leave on the day the aerial photography is over. Because I think there is a saying that is still very good, that is, to be as close to the ground as possible, even if it is a meter, this kind of swimming I feel a sense of sleepwalking.
Fly close to the surface. Looking back on your creative process, have you ever given yourself any obvious stages? And then what's a question you often look back on or think about?
Relatively, there will still be. In fact, I am still a little bit of a person, and every film I hope can internally respond to some kind of question in my heart, or close to my heart. For example, "South Stone", that film is a little longer, until now, I think it is still relatively close, and it is constantly approaching in the future. For example, I think you may watch "Blue and Red" and "In Search of Geothermal Heat", or even "South Stone", but there is still something different. Including you said that "Van Cave" and "Blue and Red" have the feeling of pursuing light, but they have many differences.
Zhou Tao's "South Stone" | South Stone | 24m | 2011
I think before "South Stone" it looked like a young man trying different things, or like a two-year-old or three-year-old who would drill a hole when he saw it, and would climb when he touched the table, and I felt that the time period was particularly like a child, more interested in physical space exploration. After "South Stone", the spatiality began to change, and the exploration of space was not only physical, but gradually dissolved in this level of time.
However, this is a bit big, in the previous exchange at the end of the screening, I talked about the understanding of the body, when the actor performs, the body as a medium of self-expression. In the context of today's art, such as conceptual art, literary fiction, and all kinds of performances, I think these mediums are not a problem in the first place.
The second point is to return to the "terrain" I mentioned, each different social age will always shape the life of each person with the commonality of the group, and will also produce its own unique geographical features. When "terrain" becomes a medium of expression, it is necessary to ask yourself repeatedly: What is the human body like? It's not a cow's, it's not a dinosaur's, it's human, and of course the human body I'm talking about is not the body we bump into the skin.
Why do I say that work is becoming more and more humble to maintain such a relationship with the world? And it's feeling this more and more. Of course, technology and these things must play a particularly important precondition in this process of change.
So after talking about "South Stone" today, I have put forward the term "terrain" more and more. Including "Blue and Red", "Van Cave" is the most obvious, and probably next will be more mentioned this "terrain narrative", what is our body today?
If you were to ask me what angle I often focus on terrain now, I would say that you are wrong, and I should say that I am thinking about what angle I want to focus on from the terrain in reverse.
These thinking directions and creative thinking are very subversive, jumpy, and even a short period of time screening, but they are also approaching and exploring some ultimate problems.
I think it's actually because that's the way the world really is. Why is it always very rational to summarize and sort out the history is particularly smooth, or there is logic. In fact, this is not exactly an effort of man, I think for example, the Renaissance or the entire modern era has been pursuing this rationalism, a kind of sorting out of the world cognition. But I think that today, perhaps compared to artificial intelligence, human beings are slightly inferior, and in the future, our reality is the reality you accept under the collation of artificial intelligence, so I said to cherish my hair and take advantage of my flesh and blood.
Hurry up and continue these 100 to 200 years, you can still run, and the reality that people may be in in the future is the illusion provided by artificial intelligence. When we sort out life and history, you are not as good as artificial intelligence, they will become more and more powerful, and they will continue to expand the boundaries of life.
Today's creation is not the kind of creation we say in language, I think today's creation has become "correction" and "proofreading". In fact, I think the bigger thing is a kind of "proofreading" of the relationship between you and reality, in fact, I think artificial intelligence may be an extension of people, a copy of people, and not only that. But it brings a lot of challenges and problems, especially for cognition and body thinking about this kind of thinking. The world is changing so fast that I think true modernity has only just begun, and it was all our wishful thinking before.
So like you just said, why does the mind jump, our real world, the living world, it is like this, you can do this, and my creation of images is completely embraced by this, along with it. So what exactly works that determines my shooting in the next second? Decides the clip for my next frame? Difficult to analyze. Let me intuitively look at it, it will pass quickly, why we can react so quickly, but once we analyze it, it seems particularly difficult, so I think it is a good choice to say that we have done it first. Right? Just take your time and watch a different experience each time.
Introduction to Zhou Tao's 2019 new video works
South of the Mountain
2019, single frequency 4K audio image
Images courtesy of Artist and Vitamin Art Space
Sandstorms covered the farthest parts of the sky and earth, and because it was inconvenient to leave the mission to the next day, the salt diggers and stone-hunting teams continued to work in the Gobi Desert, and the advance detachments gathered in groups at the temporary transit station. Until near dinner time, the sand and dust engulfed the entire base, and the sky was red and gray-green.
At the highest point of the mountain, a huge white cloud rotates down from the white cloud, and to the south of the mountain is the endless Gobi sand dunes, and a 75,000-acre ecological base is slowly under construction.
Where is the depth of field of the image practice, terrain sampling, sound and picture coming?
In the immortal desert, everything will never decay, dry into powder, weathered.
(Zhou Tao's own statement)
North of the Mountain
Along the desert, through the Gobi, over the mountains, around the river valley is a green field. The villagers scattered in the villages and market towns under the mountain agreed to return to the original site where they lived 27 years ago. Is it the joy of reunion or sacrifice to ride a sheep and a dog race?
Before the snow and ice of the snowy mountains can completely cover the ground, they must retrieve the cattle and sheep that have been free-range in the mountains for a year. Tarpaulin tents were erected along the ruins of the broken walls; by the campfire that had not been extinguished for several days, large pieces of roast meat were piled on fragrant white bread; old neighbors who had not been seen for a long time talked about different encounters from all over.
Yes, on the north side of the mountain, the scenery is as good as ever.
Even in the vast and sublime nature, traces of man are still everywhere. Here, useless things are produced in the name of infrastructure, and then quickly engulfed by the terrain, becoming natural silt. "South of the Mountain" and "North of the Mountain" are already equivalent to films, but this kind of length is Zhou Tao's radical attempt to ecologicalize the photographer's body and image technology— the potential of the image lies in connecting the human eye and the body, "correcting" the reality dominated by technology, and seeking the shortest distance between perception and reality.
"Guide Tube" WeChat directube2016
"Guide Tube" commemoration of the surrounding: "Resurrection" theme mobile phone case for sale
The "guide tube" style will not change, and the website is under construction
Promotions/Collaborations/Events
Add WeChat: directubeee