Demos

2016 - Film & Video (Film & Video)

13:00 minutes

Danaya Chulphuthiphong

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The film Demos by Danaya Chulphuthiphong draws parallels between zoo animals and humans through an assemblage of footage and images collected from various news and science websites. The soundtrack, made in collaboration with filmmaker, artist, and musician Pathompon “Mont” Tesprateep, was also sourced online and includes recordings of sounds produced in outer space, underwater, the deep jungle, as well by drones and laser beams. The film begins with the watchful eye of a semi-submerged crocodile, then shifts into an industrial scene of cranes swinging building materials across the sky. Later, various reptiles sit motionless in their vivariums, while Thai water dragons struggle to lay atop one another. Other vignettes show construction workers demolish buildings; dinosaur replicas act as menacing omens; and bears in captivity sway in anxious frustration. The foreboding atmosphere, accentuated by the distressing soundtrack, contrasts with the slow and calm movements of the film’s cast of characters. A sense of ominous waiting—of impending doom—builds throughout the film. The culmination of the video prompts audiences to question who the detained creatures really are in this exchange. Though the audience indeed surveys the captive animals, the viewer also waits with anticipation and frustration for something to transpire. Conjuring an emotional climate of dread, the artist articulates that Demos echoes the anxiety, despair, and oppression that has lingered in Thailand since the military coup of 2014.

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Working with both still and moving images, Danaya Chulphuthiphong is an activist and filmmaker whose work sheds light on social realities in Thailand. Chulphuthiphong’s film works are often experimental in form and articulate their concepts through carefully selected tonal imagery and sounds. Starting her career as a documentary photographer for a newspaper and a magazine, Chulphuthiphong’s film debut, Night Watch (2014), follows a middle class neighborhood in Bangkok right after the 2014 Thai military coup.

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Colors:

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• emotion.n.01
• oppression.n.01
• homo.n.02
• animal.n.01
• coup_d'etat.n.01
• politics.n.01