This is my home (2016) from Alex Yiu on Vimeo.
This is My Home
2016
Single channel video and stereo sound
The original footage was captured from the arrival of Queen Elizabeth II to Hong Kong on the 21st of Oct, 1986. It was a carnival where music served as an important function of representing Hong Kong in a critical moment, where colonialism was in the process of being replaced by a mixture of localism and nationalism. While most of the songs sung in this event are mostly arrangements of Chinese folk songs, the main theme of the jingle is actually an original Children's song, "When We Were Young,” composed and arranged by Joseph Koo. The metaphorical tension of music here is amplified by the generative audiovisual result of the algorithmic composition, which I constructed.
The video, jammed with glitches, shatters the supposedly flawless visage of the digital. In this electronic world, malfunctions become an everyday nuisance, and they are quickly eliminated, but the same cannot be implied with real-life glitches. The lyrics of “This is My Home” were written by James Wong, a prominent Hong Kong lyricist, for the Queen on her visit to Hong Kong in 1986; the lyrics depict precisely the Hong Kongers’ hopes and expectations of their land during the 1980s after its economic take-off. Thirty years later, Hong Kong had undergone numerous crises and turmoil; through an algorithm, the artist converts the music while withholding traces and fragments of the lyrics, implying that the Hong Kongers are faced with a no longer familiar land.
《這是我家》
2016
單頻錄像及立體聲
原始影像素材取材自 1986 年 10 月 21 日英女王伊利沙伯二世訪港時的片段。那是一場嘉年華式的盛會，音樂在其中肩負著關鍵功能，在殖民地主義正逐步被本土主義與民族主義混合體所取代的關鍵時刻，呈現香港的面貌。雖然當日演出的歌曲多改編自中國民謠，但貫穿主旋律的其實是一首原創兒歌——由顧嘉煇（Joseph Koo）作曲及編曲的《小時候》（When We Were Young）。音樂在此處所隱含的張力隱喻，透過我所構建的演算法作曲（algorithmic composition）所生成的視聽結果，被進一步放大。
充滿故障雜訊（glitches）的錄像，粉碎了數位影像原本理應完美無瑕的表象。在這個電子世界裡，故障雖是日常滋擾，卻往往能被迅速排除；然而，現實生活中的「故障」卻無法一概而論。歌曲《這是我家》（This is My Home）的歌詞由香港著名填詞人黃霑（James Wong）所寫，正是為了 1986 年女王訪港而作；歌詞精準地描繪了 80 年代經濟起飛後，香港人對這片土地的希冀與期盼。三十年後，香港經歷了無數危機與動盪；藝術家透過演算法轉化了這段音樂，同時保留了歌詞的蛛絲馬跡與碎片，暗示著香港人所面對的，已是一片不再熟悉的土地。
