Photography by Ann Chih | Music by Adrian Lo
November 2015
Photography is never a preoccupation with capturing a ‘concrete’ reality. Instead, I am intrigued by the possibilities that photography can offer in exploring the relationship between what is visible and what is not, the ambiguous qualities of my distorted images allow the viewers to ponder about the power and longevity of photography as a communicative medium and an art form.
The rhythm and emotion of urban everyday-life are emphasised by repetitive imageries. Each piece is captured and reflected through processes of rotation and reflection both in camera and in post manipulation process. The photographs display piercing interpretations of Hong Kong’s undying consumer culture in photographic fragments that seem permanently altered and yet endlessly evolving.
Ann Chih
Eidos Skopeo captures so succinctly that sense of the urban everyday-life peculiar to Hong Kong.
Spatially the works are set in those playgrounds of our ‘undying consumer culture’, but the distortive effects in these photographs unleashes the potential for different perceptions and imaginations of our familiar surroundings, thereby instilling an energy and dynamism that you wouldn’t expect of still images. This is what I love about urban photography.
I’d like to think that what’s great about cities is that they can be anything you imagine them to be.
Perhaps the artist presents you with the questions, but of course she is not alone in this exercise.
It’s because we’ve all been to the same places and yet we engage with our spaces differently, the city is never merely that which we see with the naked eye, but more importantly it must also be that which we allow ourselves to imagine.
The first publishing of Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities picked Rene Magritte as the cover artist, and I think if they are looking for a book cover in 2015, then Ann Chih's Eidos Skopeo would be perfect.
My composition also titled Eidos Skopeo is in four parts:
i) Time Flies (Arrhythmia); ii) Polyrhythmia; iii) Exit A (Eurhythmia); iv) Isorhythmia.
This is as much of a musical rhythmanalysis of Hong Kong’s everyday-life, as it is about me just messing around on my drum machine and cutting up samples of familiar noises I’ve recorded around Hong Kong. Each piece represents a different mood, different time of day, and different surroundings.
Adrian Lo
November 2015
Eidos Skopeo is selected as part of Slideluck Tokyo II in October 2016, and Slideluck Hong Kong in November 2016.
Eidos Skopeo was exhibited at Boom Gallery on Sai Street, Sheung Wan, Hong Kong, in November and December 2015.
Time Flies (Arrhythmia) was selected and broadcasted as part of the ‘Urban Sense’ exhibition at K11. It was released by Love Da Records in the compilation album Urban Sense on iTunes, Spotify and other major digital platforms.
iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/urban-sense/id1096928525
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/track/6IfkmvCnehkEvkDf14a4u0
Love Da Records