 Good evening, everyone, and good evening to Cheng Ran, who is connecting from Hanzo in China. I would like, first of all, to thank you, Cheng, for being with us today, and for having accepted to be part of this online public program that we have launched with the Moodam in the month of October. And today we're actually concluding our cycle of interviews. Today is our eighth interview. I am Emanuela Mazzonis, and I have assisted Francesco Bonami in creating the Me Family project and online platform and public program. So before we will start our interview, I would like to give to our public a small introduction about you, Cheng, and your work. So Cheng Ran is one of the most promising Chinese artists of his generation. His work has been exhibited already in many different museums, and he had different important solo shows. Just to name a few, I would say one at the Mac in Belfast, the new museum in New York, the Key 11 Art Foundation in Hong Kong, the Yuan Space in Beijing as well. He also has been included in different important group exhibitions at the Kino de Kunst in Munich, at the ICA in Singapore. He was also part of the fourth event, Issa Bun Bayania, an important show in Saichan, an intérieur du genre at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, and the rock band Art Museum in Shanghai. So Cheng, you investigate the cultural landscape of West and East society. In your works, in your videos and films, you are comparing the literacy, poetic, cinematographic and visual words. You propose a new narrative that brings together and compares myth and modernity. Past and present, personal and collective events. Since your last epic nine hour long video work entitled In Curse of the Miraculous from 2016, you become more and more interested in the idea of otherness, if I can use this word, the relationship between time and urban environment and the meaning of language. Inspired by a diverse range of sources from the internet and advertising to political affairs and obscure mythical events, you are capable of developing a poetic language that includes both the internal world and the external one. So going back to the work In Curse of the Miraculous, you are narrating three real life mysterious disappearance. The first one is a British mountainer, George Mallory, who went missing while he was ascending the Mount Everest in the beginning of the 20th century in 1924. The second one is the artist, Jan Adder, who vanished during his journey across the Atlantic in 1975. That was part of a performance that of course never went completed because of his loss at the sea. And the performance was entitled In Search of the Miraculous. And the third person is a Chinese fish controller, Lu Rong Yu, which in 2011 returned to land after eight months with only one third of its original crew still alive. Now I would like to ask you, Cheng, if you can tell us more about this project and your source of inspiration and the aim you wanted to gain with this work. Hi, thank you for introduction and thank you for inviting me for these great projects and the interviews. And for this work in Curse of the Miraculous, actually this is my first future film, but it's also still not a real film because it's not as long. So I was thinking about Zaynemar film, also film in museums, but it's not the main question for me, how to show it in real time, people who are watching or sleeping, even we can serve as food or sleeping bag for watching people who are watching this film. So I think that's an important idea for Star. This film is based on two stories through missing people part. So I think that's the main idea to making this movie through the different true story and imaging that's become true to true. And I'm also really interested in the system and progress of how to making films in the film production the way. So to making this nine hours movies not easy, it totally took I think three years. And from the beginning, I already start plan how to shoot this movie and how to open the system of film production to make things happening. So before the movies come in, I did many different research for the stories. Also I make the script and the storyboard. So before the movies come in, I prepared over 10 expressions and the performance to open the system to show the progress of the movie. That includes a storyboard film which I only use a very simple drawing with a voice over to talk about how do I think about the story? How I want, how can I to show the different parts and how about the details of the different parts? So that's become already of exhibitions to show my mind. And this start from 2013 when I was in Amsterdam in the York Academy. That's why I am interested in the story of the bathroom and other. So, and final part is ending at 2015 show in Istanbul Biennale and the Caleb Foundation in Hong Kong. But it's not, still not the end. After the time in 2019, I also worked with a really good musician called Dad G. He's a really good DJ and musicians. We're working together to show different kind of result of this movie with a live performance in Sydney Opera House. So I think for the title of the name is already tell everything in cause of the mechlers. So I would like to say the progress is already the start. So I've already in set the mechlers if the mechlers we need to searching for something. So I try to use this film to searching the results. Also the time of making the movie is also part of the recorders, yeah. Yeah, I think also this movie is quite interesting we built a fiction part inside a film studio. We built 400 square meters black sea with a black motor to rebuild the view of the missing moment of bus or other. So nobody knows what happens. So we need to imagine what is going on during that time. So and after the shooting, that's actually the last part of the shooting. After the shooting, we open the gate of the studio and we built a really famous post rock music band, Wang Wen to play live music with the black sea and the boat of Baxiang other. So this movie is about cost, this also about the recorders. Thank you for this precise explanation. I think that we can say that all your work is about searching for something as you just said. And I would like actually now to talk about another work, Chun Ku from 2017, 2019. And this work consists of 100 documentary videos ranging from a few seconds to less than an hour that record the fast moving present and imagining the future ghost of modernization. You are mixing past, present and future interconnecting society and individuals. The modern city and the wildness, the modernity and nature, emotional reality, and fantasy. For this work, you have been inspired by the Italian film director Michelangelo Antonioni who in 1972 has been invited by the Chinese government to film a three hours and 40 minute documentary called the Chun Ku China. The film recorded much realistic footage of China at that time. So after almost 50 years, we can say how much of China has remained the same on your opinion and how much has changed. What was your idea behind this documentary work? I think the world is changing so fast as I've already mentioned. So also with very high speed in this different times. Maybe we have so many things happening in last year. Also it's convenient. So that's probably changed my mind. So I think for everybody they have something they need to be thinking about. I think China is also changing. The changing is either developing minutes, many minutes, second by seconds. So it's so quickly. The world's, with the Italian director Antonioni did in 1975 this work. I think that's the first time through a director's will to tell Chinese people what is the country with a really personal idea and opinion. So that's make so much voice from different part, from China part, from Italian people, also from normal Chinese people part. I think that's become really the first, really public talking about China. Not from the government, not from the real people who visit China and to recording the time of the country. About the work that China, which I did, I still working on it. It's already took five years. It starts in 2017. And in the beginning, I want to finish in 2019, but for now it's still ongoing. So we'll be finished the end of this year. So it's had a new title called the CK2K2X. So that's, some materials is more and more coming. I'm still making. I think this work for me is like a mirror. The reflections shows in between the reality and the history and memories. Also connect with the great work, Chongguo. So more important is in personal perspective than the great parts. When we have the, you know, smartphone, all the photos are marked in all the spaces. So that's how it's going this time. So in my way to working with these projects, it's planned to make over hundreds piece of videos, clips to talking about the country. Let's integrate many, many different things. About landscape, great wall. Also about really personal parts. So those videos, that's all made by myself. And it's not great or perfect pictures, very personal. So that's the most important idea for this big topic and for this work. I hope to tell people usually to stay through a country with a different opinion, with different personal views. I am the only one, I just is one of that over like maybe 10,000,000,000 people. They have seen things to take photos about different cities, different parts. So I hope to show China very small, smally, very personally, the real. And for this work, I also really want to thank Francisco Bonami to make this work real. From the beginning in 2017, we talk about this work. So every year we still keep talking about this. And we also have so many ideas is changing because the world, the country is changing faster than us. So that's, for me, it's still a problem. So I always try to rethink in this video to try to keep the balance between the artwork and myself. Thank you, Chang, I think that what is really important is to underline your way of showing this work as a mirror, as you said, as a reflection of reality. All of your works are in a different way, a reflection of reality, of a specific reality. Of course you are working on in different ways. And the fact that, as you said, you want to give the different opinion of China, probably also a different way of looking to China from also our point of view as people from Western society, I believe. And I think we can make also a link. And I think we can make a link. And these different topics with the work you are presenting on our platform, Diary of Mad Men, which is always a reflection of reality, a different kind of reality. You are, this work is from 2017, 2018, and it's a triology dedicated to three great cities, New York, New York, New York, New York, three great cities, New York, Jerusalem, and Hong Kong. Very different, three different worlds, three different cultures, histories, political scenario. And it's actually a result of three residences you have made in the three cities. And here you are speaking about multi-ethnic, social, political, religious, and cultural situation that you have seen and experienced on the ground. The title of the work is taken from a Mad Men's Diary, a first modern fictional work in the history of Chinese literature written in 1918 by Luke Soon. And just as the author narrates this short story in the first person in the form of a diary, turning it into a metaphor for the dramas of contemporary societies, you are recounting the emotions, the problems, the impressions of, you know, the geographical experience that each of us can identify with. Each character with whom you come into contact has the same perspective and the same point of view as you, following the instructions given before each take. You focus your investigation on the role of the language as a form of universal communication, asking your characters who are coming from different nationalities to speak Chinese, or even trying yourself to repeat words in different languages as French, Cantonese, Hebrew. And in this way, you are able to underline the distance that interposes itself between known territories and unknown words, the effort made by the individuals to try to integrate into different situations and the parallels established between time, place, and social environment. So what was your main idea behind this project and how important has been for you, and the Chinese literature poem, as your source of inspiration? Yeah, it's the main idea is from the Lucian novel. Yeah, it's kind of like the beginning of New China. So I really like the novel, also the title. It talks about a madman, he's crazy and talking about everything, but nobody believes him. So that's interesting. Also, I think that he puts the personal opinion into a madman. So to talk about China, talk about the situation, talk about culture and everything. So in my work, it's like, I like the culture from both generations from China. So like, cultures, also novels, like always it inspires me a lot. For the narrative of madman New York, actually at the beginning of the project, during the three months in New York, that actually is my first time to be in New York. So I think that's really a good start, but it's also very difficult. You know, a city is not easy to use only a few words or a few minutes to tell people what is New York. So I think that's a good way is to talk about myself, talk about some imagination and fantasy of misunderstanding. So that's the main idea. So New York for me is more like, it's not a city, I think it's like a pageant or a couple or a cave, even a self-portrait. So for New York three months recently, I actually made 15 videos with different kind of people, friends, but I also asked them to speak Chinese or speak different language. So the language for me is also very, I'm really interested in this part, not only because we need to talk with each other, we need to understand with each other. That's the only way like a bridge to connect with different cultures and different country and religions, but also in another way, if the languages is only a sound, so we have another way to understand and listen. So as you see for myself, I always try to speak in my work, to speak French, Swiss, German and Cantonese, many, many, many, but actually I don't know all of the languages. As only moments I repair, so like a momentary memory. So after the speaking, I totally forgot all the meaning. So I think that's built a different dimension to connecting with different people. So it's like to discover a different area. It's like, for example, in New York, I've been the famous place like Times Square, like all the famous parts, but finally I shoot a page in Times Square. I make the camera go up, I go to people, the page take over all the LEDs, all the crazy words. And I also speak, the famous poetry from Island's Geese Bowl, I can't speak very well, but if all the sound is from the page and from different things. So that's already broke the root, broke the system. It doesn't matter if it's good or not. So I use this way to working for the dev of Man-Man, the projects. For Jerusalem, for Hong Kong, it's also the same way. For example, in Jerusalem, I was sick, so I feel not really good, my mind is not clear. And you know, the city is also very intense and very heavy, fighting always like forever. So I cannot easily to tell people what is the city, what is Jerusalem. But I can tell people like my body have some problems. So during the time in Jerusalem, I can feel the blood connect with the traffic. My mind is connect some culture. So I try to make the questions not to people. The question is back to myself. So I hope this work can bring some new understanding and listening to people and to rethinking about communication, about country, different cultures. Yes. Thank you Chang again for the explanation. I think it was very interesting to listening to you and your point of view and your way of looking these three cities. And actually you made the fantastic portraits of the cities. Very different from what we usually know about these three giant cities. I think that what is important now is that I would like to invite all the people who are watching us to watch, to take the time, because it's a long film, to take the time to watch the film again in our platform. And I invite everyone to try to identify their self with your figure. Through the eyes, I would say of an outsider. As you exactly did when you arrived in the three cities. And as you said, especially in New York probably, as a first time visitors in New York and in US, you actually have been able to capture what is typically excluded from the iconic images of the city and you actually have been able to give us a very less obvious picture of the popular New York. You gave us an, I would say an uncelebrated and more obscure face of the city. You guided us towards the unexplored, the unknown and the elsewhere, a different dimension to connect with people. And as you just said, rethink about communication, about cultures, about people and trying to give a different point, give a different point of view of what is usually is popular to our eyes. So I thank you time for your time and for this explanation. And I really hope to talk to you very soon. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, see you soon. See you soon. Thank you. Bye bye.