Gallery: 'Two Improvisations: A Punk Musical' by esea contemporary

Please find subtitles below.

Two Improvisation is the second trilogy I’m making
around the figure of Yěrén (野人),

a creature from the Chinese folklore,
a bit like the Bigfoot,

whose sighting resurfaced
after the Chinese Cultural Revolution.

For me, Yěrén (野人) has always been a way of thinking
about the role of the artist,

someone who exists at the margins;
hard to place,

hard to categorise,
yet holds plenty of space for imagination.

The film holds two channels,

the first combines stop motion and animation,
built from models of space

the artist has once inhabited.

With footage of me performing among these props
shot on 16mm.

Those stop motion performances
are a way of stamping time into an image,

they connect back to experimental films
and performances being made in the late 70’s

around the same moment when Yěrén (野人) sightings
were resurfacing.

The second channel features original songs
written for the film

by my collaborator Lu Yan and me.

The music moves between punk,
jazz,

post punk
and improvisation.

The mixing of these genres is deliberate,

it mirrors the temperament and circular nature
of both music and time.