Kieran Boland

PARTICIPANT'S VERSION First shown as a single channel work in progress at the Kuandu Museum of Fine Art (KDMoFA), Taipei in association with RMIT:ART:INTERSECT and Taiwan National University of the Arts (TNUA)
 

Featuring: 周子晴 [Ariel] 范安妮 (Annie) 李佳勳 (Billy) 陳芊曄 (Dora) 宋海容 (Helen)蔡淳絜 (Janice) 林立婷 (Lin) 林孟瑾 (Meng-jin) 
邱霈恩 (Peien) 林沛瑤 (Patrice) 葉信萱 (Shelby) 王韻涵 (Sidney) 林立堯 (Yao) 游雅竹 (YuCha) 吳雨蓁 (Zoe) 吳志維 (Tony) and Minji Kang Special Thanks to 張嘉桓 (David Chang) Music tracks including 'Sweet Nuts and Coffee' courtesy of Bucketmen
 

This project took its inspiration from a Taiwanese friend who insisted she learnt English by watching only three films over and over again. She watched them fanatically to learn the language phonetically. The three films were Fight Club (1999) Trainspotting (1996) and Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975). Curiously, all films share a reactionary, counter cultural theme, some may even say they represent a decline in western culture. By way of response, we reinterpreted scenes from three Taiwanese films; A Brighter Summer Day (1991) The Puppetmaster (1993) and The Wayward Cloud (2005). The questions that influenced our choice of films were relevant in both Taiwan and Australia. Can we find merit in sharing perceptions and translations of cultural decline framed by cinema? What expectations do we have of our own culture and what shadows do they cast elsewhere? Is the theme of ennui and youthful disenfranchisement, along with a sense that life is elsewhere common across cultures and if so, can we always attribute it to an external cause?

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