Field trip II Escalator in Central: People

The escalator is a space full of people. People who are going up, people who are strolling down, people who…… Nevertheless, the mundane presence of people makes them absent and invisible. In such a transportation space where people constantly pass by each other, we usually don’t look at people, but just see them briefly. The subject of these five videos shot in Central, then, is nothing else but the overlooked figure of people.

Camera is static; subject is dynamic

There are two kinds of subjects in this video; the obvious dynamic subject (the moving vehicles), and the hidden subject (the man behind the glass window).

Differentiation of speed

Both the camera and the pedestrians are moving (in opposite directions), but the camera moves faster, creating a sense that the camera is forcing these people out of the frame.

Framing

The glass window is a frame where we finally look at the figure of people, but we look at them only because they are ourselves.

Cropping

The human figure that enters my video briefly is cropped by the frame, leaving a fragmented and fleeting part of the body.

Slow motion

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dc0TWsdGNk&feature=youtu.be

(Or try this link:   https://youtu.be/0dc0TWsdGNk

I didn’t edit this video using slow-motion techniques, but the slowness speaks for itself. The elderly woman is walking slowly and with apparent difficulty, while we witness how the distance between her and the young girl ahead of her gets ever-larger. It is almost like an allegory of our modern society, where youth and speed are worshipped, leaving whatever is old and ‘slow’ behind. The sense of allegory is enhanced by the ironic presence of the word ‘SLOW’ on the road. The slowness here is not so much like that of Antonioni or Tsai Ming-Liang, but more like Ann Hui (especially in films like The Way We Are and A Simple Life where she turns her camera to the mundane everydayness of the abandoned group of elderly).

Zhu Jieming (UID:3035448524)