Both Sides Now 9: Generations | Subtitled | 49 mins | Rated 18
esea contemporary is pleased to host the screening programme 'Both Sides Now 9: Generations'. Curated by videoclub and Videotage, the programme showcases moving image works by international artists and filmmakers, including Chan Ka Chi陳家智, Doreen Chan陳泳因, Lau Wei劉衛, Jake Elwes, Paul Trillo, Axl Le乐毅 and Jonas Lund.
'Both Sides Now 9' delves into the intricate interplay between generative technology and creativity by engaging with the latest advances in AI - which are revolutionising our way of life. As we stand at the brink of a new era of automation, humanity is poised for a profound transformation.
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PROGRAMME
Jake Elwes, Zizi & Me – Anything You Can Do (I Can Do Better), 2020, 4:55 mins
Jake Elwes, Making of the Zizi Show, 2021, 6:19 mins
Paul Trillo, Jacques – ‘Absolve’, 2023, 4:43 mins
Axl Le 乐毅, The Journey, 2020, 3:49 mins
Axl Le 乐毅, The Patient, 2021, 1:38 mins
Axl Le 乐毅, A hundred Varieties of Life, 2021-22, 2:40 mins
Jonas Lund, The Future of Something, 2023, 13:41 mins
Kachi Chan 陳家智, Reconstructed, 2022, 3:59 mins
Doreen Chan 陳泳因 HalfDream, 2021, 5:38 mins
Lau Wai 劉衛, The Dome, 2023, 1:50 mins
Film Synopsis
Jake Elwes, Zizi & Me – Anything You Can Do (I Can Do Better), 2020, 4:55 mins
Zizi & Me is a double act between drag queen Me The Drag Queen, and a deepfake (A.I.) clone of Me The Drag Queen. By training a neural network on filmed footage this network learnt to construct a virtual body that can be controlled by feeding it new reference movements. The first act 'Anything You Can Do (I Can Do Better)’ satirises the idea that an AI is something that we might mistake for a human. Through drag performance, we aim to use cabaret and musical theatre to challenge narratives surrounding A.I. and society.
Jake Elwes, Making of the Zizi Show, 2021, 6:19 mins
The Zizi Project is an ongoing collection of works by Jake Elwes exploring the intersection of Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) and drag performance. Drag challenges gender and explores otherness, while A.I. is often mystified as a concept and tool, and is complicit in reproducing social bias. Zizi combines these themes through a deepfake, synthesised drag identity created using machine learning. The project explores what AI can teach us about drag, and what drag can teach us about A.I.
Paul Trillo, Jacques – ‘Absolve’, 2023, 4:43 mins
Fusing traditional VFX with a variety of boundary-pushing AI techniques, Absolve gives way to a new aesthetic and offers an alternative to how visual effects will be approached in the future. A leak in the ceiling of the Louvre pulls Jacques into an emotional vortex where a cosmic teardrop dissolves the museum’s masterpieces into their rawest forms. Follow your tears and see where it might take you.
Axl Le 乐毅, The Journey, 2020, 3:49 mins
A short film consisting of three parts, The Journey is a reflection on the relationship between humanity and nature. The work is inspired by Le's travels to Norway. The film unfolds on a distant planet where a series of experiments are being conducted to restore the nature of the planet. A visual experience is created which speaks to the heart and soul of the natural world and serves as a reminder to protect and cherish the planet.
Axl Le 乐毅, The Patient, 2021, 1:38 mins
The Patient short film reflects on the role of a modern work environment and how it impacts our lives. It was made in opposition to a statement made in 2019 by Alibaba CEO, Jack Ma, who advocated that '996' is a blessing. '996' is an increasingly common practice in the Chinese tech industry, where employees are required to work from 9:00 am to 9:00 pm, 6 days a week.
Axl Le 乐毅, A hundred Varieties of Life, 2021-22, 2:40 mins
The main themes of A hundred Varieties of Life are spring, summer, autumn and winter, combining the seasons with various lifestyles and natural spaces to create different fascinating lifestyles.
Jonas Lund, The Future of Something, 2023, 13:41 mins
The Future of Something, a sequel to Lund’s The Future of Nothing (2023), which appeared in the prequel exhibition, takes a deep dive into the human anxieties framing an AI-driven world. Across the morphing vignettes of seven AI-generated human support groups—ranging from couples therapy to robot love tensions, online poker addicts to content creators anonymous—the video deftly navigates familiar fears of machinic displacement of the self through the heightened drama of parody.
Kachi Chan 陳家智, Reconstructed, 2022, 3:59 mins
There are strong parallels between memory reconstruction and AI image generation. Both are expressions of reality that are accurate yet inaccurate, in the sense that they are a reality that has been artificially constructed. Both rely heavily on nostalgia, the idea of a romanticised past that may or may not have existed. Reconstructed attempts to reconcile these two realities by using AI, film dialogues, literature and artist’s writings about Wan Chai. The resulting images are at once familiar but alien, reconstructing a mirror of our memories refracted through the lens of machines.
Doreen Chan 陳泳因, HalfDream, 2021, 5:38 mins
HalfDream is an ongoing participatory project since 2021, collecting the dream content of people in different regions and matching common dreams to facilitate dreamers to connect based on dreams instead of societal boundaries. HalfDream has collected over 4200 dreams mainly via showing its’ online platform (HalfDream.org) with site-specific installations, which created semi-public spaces in exhibitions in Pittsburgh, New York, Chicago, Paris, Xiamen, Beijing, and Hong Kong.
Lau Wai 劉衛, The Dome, 2023, 1:50 mins
The artist's digital avatar, resembling a motion capture performer, emerges in front of a green screen within a dome. They explore various scenes, encountering a man in a protection suit facing blue-bodied creatures. As chaos erupts, the protagonist continues forward. The man reappears, leading them through an iron gate into a new space. Confusion ensues as they realise they're trapped in another sealed dome, witnessing a giant figure in a protection suit passing by outside.
關於彼岸觀自在 About Both Sides Now
Both Sides Now is a tactical programme partnership between Videotage (HK) and videoclub (UK). Which uses contemporary and historical film and video work to explore developments within the culture and society of Hong Kong, China, the UK, and beyond.
Axl Le is a digital artist and filmmaker born in 1989 in Shanghai, China, currently living in Oslo, Norway. He has been creating digital art since 2016. Since 2019 he has devoted most of his energy to the creation of CG video work. Through using 3D software as his main tool of creation, Axl explores the relationship between nature and technology, society and individual, present and future.
Kachi Chan is an artist and researcher who navigates the spaces between the physical and digital worlds. His exploration takes form through computational design, digital realities and robotics. His research primarily focused on employing cultural informatics to recast social issues artistically, all while giving voice to lesser-known perspectives within systems.
Kachi was a recipient of the Hong Kong Scholarship for Excellence, which enabled him to pursue advanced studies at the Royal College of Art and Bartlett School of Architecture at University College London.
Kachi’s research-driven artistry has gained significant recognition, including an Honorary Mention at Prix Ars Electronica, the Bartlett Medal, OPPO Renovators Creativity Award, and the Arts Council England Project Grant. His work has been exhibited at notable events such as Ars Electronica Festival, ISEA International, Art Basel Hong Kong and London Design Festival.
Kachi is currently a Research Assistant Professor at the Hong Kong Baptist University where he teaches histories and theories within media art.
Doreen Chan (b.1987, Hong Kong) is a mixed-media artist focusing on social practice. She was trained in visual communication and photography before receiving her MA in Art Education from School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2021. In her work, Chan re-examines the tensions between interpersonal relationships and subject formation. Through collecting, selecting, and reorganizing fragments from everyday life, she explores how individuals interact with collective and personal memories. She works site-specifically on installations, public programs, virtual projects, and collaborates with a wide range of individuals using images, sculptures, objects, sounds, and performance.
Chan has exhibited in institutions such as Ars Electronica Festival 2022 (Linz), UCCA Center for Contemporary Art (Beijing), Times Museum (Guangzhou), Art Omi (New York), and Para Site (Hong Kong). In 2023, her commissioned project, Sipping Dreams, inaugurated Tai Kwun Contemporary’s V Hall. In the same year, she was listed as ArtReview China’s Future Greats. In 2021, she was an Eyebeam fellow and the 4th VH Award of Hyundai Motor Group finalist. She was also selected as Cultured Magazine’s Young Artists (2021). Chan currently lives in New York.
Jake Elwes (b.1993, UK) is an artist, hacker, neuroqueer, educator and researcher living in London. They're currently working to queer artificial intelligence with deepfake drag performers. Across projects that encompass moving-image installation, sound and performance, Jake’s work finds unusual ways of demystifying, mapping and subverting technology. Their work searches for poetry and narrative in the successes and failures of digital systems. Works include deepfake drag in The Zizi Project, glitching oppressive algorithms in Machine Learning Porn and reframing AI-generated marsh birds back into nature in CUSP. They have been making art exploring the aesthetics and ethics of machine learning systems since the very first generative AI models in 2016. Jake’s work also calls for us to challenge who builds these systems and for what purpose, and whether we, as artists and queers, can reclaim these technologies to build our own digital utopias.
Jake studied at The Slade School of Fine Art, UCL (2013-17), and their work has been exhibited in museums and galleries internationally, including the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich; Somerset House, London; ZKM, Karlsruhe; Today Art Museum, Beijing; Frankfurter Kunstverein; Fotomuseum Winterthur, Switzerland; Honor Fraser Gallery, LA; Fundacion Telefonica Museum, Madrid; Ars Electronica, Austria; Zabludowicz Collection, London; Sculpture in the City, London; Science Gallery Dublin; RMIT Gallery, Melbourne; Onassis Foundation, Athens; E-WERK Freiburg, Germany; Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin; Nature Morte, Delhi; Centre for the Future of Intelligence, Cambridge and they have been featured on ZDF aspekte, ARD ttt (DE), BBC Radio 4 Front Row, and BBC1’s Kill Your TV - History of Video Art (UK).
Jonas Lund is a Swedish conceptual artist who creates paintings, sculptures, photography, websites and performances that critically reflect on contemporary networked systems and power structures. His artistic practice involves creating systems and setting up parameters that oftentimes require engagement from the viewer. This results in game-like artworks where tasks are executed according to algorithms or a set of rules. Through his works, Lund investigates the latest issues generated by the increasing digitalisation of contemporary society like authorship, participation and authority. At the same time, he questions the mechanisms of the art world, challenging the production process, authoritative power and art market practices.
Lund earned an MA at Piet Zwart Institute, Rotterdam (2013) and a BFA at Gerrit Rietveld Academy, Amsterdam (2009). He has had solo exhibitions at The Photographers’ Gallery (2019), Whitechapel Art Gallery, London (2016), Steve Turner, Los Angeles (2016, 2015, 2014), Växjö Konsthall Sweden (2016), Showroom MAMA, Rotterdam (2013), New Museum, New York (2012), and has had work included in numerous group exhibitions including Centre Pompidou, Paris, Schinkel Pavillon, Berlin, ZKM, Karlsruhe, Vienna Biennale 2019, Witte De With, Rotterdam, Kindl – Centre for Contemporary Art, Berlin, and the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam. His work has been written about in Artforum, Frieze, Kunstforum, The New Yorker, The Guardian, Metropolis M, Artslant, Rhizome, Huffington Post, Furtherfield, Wired and more.
Born and raised in Hong Kong, Lau Wai currently lives and works in New York. They utilize personal and historical archives, cinematic imagery, popular culture, and emerging technologies to investigate how history, fiction, personal memory, and virtuality collide in the process of identity formation. Their practice involves moving images, new media, photography, sculptural objects, and installation.
Their works are collected by The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (United States); Alexander Tutsek – Stiftung Foundation (Germany), and M+ (Hong Kong), among others. They have exhibited at international events and institutions, including Brandts Museum of Art and Visual Culture, Denmark (2016); Power Station of Art, Shanghai (2018); Para Site, Hong Kong (2015, 2018); Tai Kwun Contemporary, Hong Kong (2019, 2021); Kuandu Biennale, Taiwan (2018); Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale, Japan (2015); The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, United States (2019) and Yokohama Triennale, Japan (2020).
Paul Trillo is a multi-disciplinary artist, writer, and director who challenges both his own curiosity and illusion with his experimental, conceptual, and highly technical films. His diverse body of work spans various genres and formats, and he is constantly pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in filmmaking. His recent explorations into the future of AI filmmaking have changed the way these tools are used, inspiring others to explore the possibilities of this exciting new field.
Paul’s work has earned him 18 Vimeo Staff Picks and has been featured in wide range of media outlets, including Rolling Stone, Vice, Sight and Sound, The Atlantic, The New Yorker, FastCo, Gizmodo, Ad Age, GQ, MIT Review, and Scientific American, among others. He has been recognized as one of D&AD’s Next Directors and has won several awards, including “The One Show’s One to Watch” and “30 Under 30 Film Festival’s Director to Watch.” Whether he’s screening his work around the world or participating in panels and juries at festivals like NVIDIA GTC, SXSW, Infinity Fest, Northside Festival, Runway AI Film Festival, and the ADC Awards, Paul is always looking for new ways to push the boundaries of what’s possible.