Shanghai Traces

This video has been shortlisted for YouTube Play. See the shortlist at http://youtube.com/play

Here's a 5-minute excerpt of a real-time video piece I presented as part of the Make Over show at OV Gallery in Shanghai, January 23-March 13, 2010.

The show was a response to the dramatic beautification campaign that overran Shanghai (my home since 2004) in anticipation of hosting the World Expo this year. The falling objects in the video are the wares of street vendors who are being forced from the city center during the Expo.

The piece was originally presented as a silent video, but in rendering a linear version to post on-line, I added a soundtrack in which recordings of interviews with Shanghai street vendors are algorithmically chopped up, layered, and delayed, very similar to what's going on in the video.

The audio and video were both generated in Max/MSP/Jitter, using simple non-linear deployment methods that I've been using for years in my videogame work, to ensure constant variation. I think the medium of generative video is well suited to commenting on a city's continual cycle of reinvention.

Read more about the project here: benhouge.com/writings/?p=370

And yes, I find it amusing and gratifying that a video submitted from a country in which YouTube is censored made the YouTube Play cut!

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• Shanghai
• OV Gallery
• Jitter
• Expo
• Max/MSP
• YouTube Play

[Octobre1986]

@desnos Not really. China has a big patriotic movement, still and in future it will become stronger, I guess. Unfortuntely, patriotism/nationalism is not the best choice, actually...

[desnos]

@Octobre1986

SIC TRANSEAT GLORIA MUNDI

[RocksRolf]

Es hat aus mich eine ähnliche Wirkung wie eine Wohlfühllampe

Die Abstrahierung des Alltagsflusses kann ich irgendwie nachvollziehen. 

[TheWatkinsvillian]

Oh man...this is so cool. Very cool concept... I really want to get into Max, especially the visual aspect of it. I want to see the patch you made for this...

[chroise18]

Boring LANGWEILIG

[Selenita000]

i really understood the point in this video, it's really good, i like it :)

[ketamphetamine]

how pointless, only one of those artistic nuts who see the brighter side of everything no matter how shit it is will see potential in this,sad world we live in.

[aaronkok55]

wasted almost 5 minutes of my life...

[Octobre1986]

I prefer Beijing. Why is every financial and aesthetic effort for Shanghai? In Beijing and other places are so many fascinating cultural spots that look like dead corners, especially the Summer Palace-area. Shanghai actually doesn't look very Chinese anymore. It's more like a Gucci and Prada-town. And the ppl show off... It's a very unnatural city and everywhere were happy EXPO-volunteers and over-whelming EXPO-videos. If you want to see the true Shanghai, go out at night on the streets!

[hiitsme3love128]

trippyyyy