After Reality

2012 - Film & Video (Film & Video)

13:10 minutes

Zhou Tao

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After Reality is a video by Zhou Tao, which was born out of his residency with the Kadist Foundation in Paris in 2012-13. Prior to arriving to the residency, the artist had begun filming in in Guangzhou, China, capturing footage of the lush vegetation from the semi-wild and semi-urbanized zones of Guangzhou’s urban fringe and a group of Dragon Boat rowers training in the adjacent river. As he arrived in Paris, he was confronted with the radical difference with which Europeans arrange and organize environments: the highly manicured cityscapes of Paris in stark contrast with the overgrown abundance of Guangzhou. Using the notion of “geometrical editing” Zhou Tao then worked to incorporate images shot in Paris to his previous editing, focusing on the idea of continuity in between spaces as means to create a third, imaginary space through film. Adding another layer of complexity, Zhou Tao also subtly appears performing in the footage among the scenes of rowers and farmers going by — either walking at a slightly slower pace behind them or assuming difficult stances amid the luxuriant vegetation. The result is a film that is untethered to space and confronts us to a kind of unhistorical time where background and stage, viewer and actor, fact and story line, documentation and representation are all superimposed interchanged. creating an alchemy that transforms ordinary surroundings into a theatre of mystery and wonder, which are rare to find.

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Artist Zhou Tao has a diverse and varied practice, and notably, he denies the existence of any singular or real narrative or space. Depicting subtle and often humorous interactions with people, things, actions, and situations, Zhou is known for his films that invite us to experience the multiple trajectories of reality; what he calls the “folding scenario” or the “zone with folds.” For him, the use of video is not a deliberate choice of artistic language or medium, instead the operation of the camera is a way of being that blends itself with everyday life. In his work, Zhou connects seemingly disparate milieus, turning his attention to often ignored sites that exist on the threshold between the natural and the artificial. The visual narratives merge different spatial constructs such as landscapes, the metropolis, construction sites, parks, public squares, and wastelands.

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Colors:

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• garden.n.01
• cross-cultural.a.01
• nature.n.01
• mystery.n.01
• fanciful.s.02
• overgrow.v.02