李若菡 • Ruohan Li

行 Xíng

2023 28min Experimental / Essay / Dance

Western languages name the planets after the gods of Roman/Greek mythology. However, in Eastern languages, especially Chinese, the planets are named after the five stages in the I Ching. They are therefore 木星 Wood Star(Jupiter), 火星 Fire Star(Mars), 土星 Soil Star(Saturn), 金星 Metal Star(Venus), 水星 Water Star(Mercury) . These names can be traced back to ancient China, when the concept of the Five Elements of the I Ching was prevalent. The five elements were the medium or principle for explaining a phenomenon, whether peculiar or irregular. After restriction, the self-attributes of the five phases and their relationship to each other as a rule also established the connection between all things in the universe. My artistic practice focuses on depicting the nuances and differences between Chinese and Western linguistics.

This film, Xíng, is a sustainable exploration of the West’s naming of the five planets in our solar system, which reflects the evolution of radically different civilizations and the philosophical logic beneath them. Starting from this difference and based on my Eastern identity and identification with Western society, the film uses the language of video to re-present the connection between the five elements in the I Ching and the five planets in a contemporary context, thus exploring the exchange and misunderstanding of different cultures.

The five mediums represent the five fundamental dynamics of the universe. In turn, their movement characteristics lead to different attribute characteristics (e.g. color, climate, personality, etc.). Ultimately, they link different fields (e.g. astrology, agriculture, internal meridians of the human body, architecture, etc.). Astronomy simply acts as a medium to link this experimental constitution to the discourse of an already overly familiar world, which produces a space for redefining the dynamics of sign, symbol, gender and political power.

Through Wuxing, through I Ching, a romantic and provocative poem is created to challenge parts of the Western mythology. The film suggests errors and relationships between language and culture that are ‘lovingly and romantically irrational’.

Official Selection
GRRL HAUS CINEMA Film Festival; 
Experimental Film Guanajuato; 
Persian Independent Experimental Short Film Festival
Madison Film Festival

Nominee
Nicomedia International Film Awards

Semi Finalist
Austin Arthouse International Festival

quarter Finalist
Edinburgh Film Awards 

Performing

2022 13min Experimental / Essay / documentary

The film is based on self-memory which is recorded as video diaries by my cellphone from 2017 to 2022. After being selected and organized, these memory fragments are finally presented through this visual essay. In the film, I focus on the relationship between space and people. Do spaces have owners? What authority do spaces represent? Particular spaces in arts always tell stories directly to the spectators by their special properties. How much deception or bluff is there in the stories? The initial motive for the recording was to capture people's unconscious behaviors which went against the functions of the spaces, which look like accidental performances to bystanders. Through showing the “performances" , the film aims to satirize the authority of spaces -- the people who have the power to define a space. However, the “performers” didn’t passively accept it but rather to resist the existing the definitions of spaces to sabotage silently.

Semi Finalist
Serbest International Film Festival