Brain Island: Neo-Existentialism

2019 /Full HD Video/ 1920x1080/ 11'54"

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The process by which people acquire essence is the process of self-design and self-cultivation. Artistic creation is the exploration and questioning of the world from the individual and the self. An artist always expresses her attitude with particularity. In the face of rapid development of the outside world, how should people position themselves? This is a self-portrait essay film that engages with the Western philosophical genre of Existentialism as a key to identity creation. A new definition of Existentialism in hyper-modern times.

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The film is a state of analysis and thinking, inspired by the Indian writer Anil Ananthaswamy’s book The Man Who Wasn‘t There, which discusses philosophical questions such as Who am I? from a scientific perspective. I have used Ananthaswamy’s analytical model of psychology as a guide to the structure of the film. In the form of teaching and popular science, through the combination of images, sounds, and words, subjective thoughts are conveyed to the audience in a first-person voice.

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The work is interspersed with a large number of glitches, animations, 3D computer graphics and digital media virtual images. The pseudo-documentary and captured real-life fragments and post-synthesized symbolic videos combine behavioral art, religious speech, and social topics in the context of global art to form a film style where a utopian and dystopian outlook compete for prominence.