The Appearing Demos by Laikwan Pang;

Author:Laikwan Pang; [Pang, Laikwan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: SOC026030 Social Science / Sociology / Urban, HIS008000 History / Asia / China, POL054000 Political Science / World / Asian
Publisher: University of Michigan Press (limited)
Published: 2020-02-17T00:00:00+00:00

Faithful to the Future

With the introduction of digital technologies for production and distribution, documentary making around the world took radical leaps forward over the last two decades; today, anyone can easily make and distribute videos. Video makers can bypass the constraints of filmmaking imposed by financing, skills, and censorship, and everyone with an ordinary camera or even a smartphone is now able to make their own documentary films. Information Page 121 →flow can no longer easily be controlled, and the new video culture becomes an effective alternative political realm. The ubiquitous nature of contemporary digital visual culture also cultivates a particular attitude among video makers, who tend to emphasize the everyday life of the people, minor resistance instead of grand narrative, and the ephemeral nature of their images. This attitude has had a particularly obvious impact on those countries with an authoritarian or paternal state, such as the PRC.4

This emphasis on the lightness of the apparatus and the images, as well as the spontaneity of the recording, risks effacing the historical consciousness implied in the act of recording—which involves not only a sense of participation, but also a complex and often heavy relationship of present, past, and future. I read these Occupy documentaries as a form of history writing. The political meaning of history writing that we have discussed could shed light on many of these documentaries, which were recorded with the assumption that the images would become a past to be examined in the future. This consciousness is particularly apparent when the recorded event is of significance to the documenter. Although we do not have control over our own personal fates or the destiny of our community, we as individuals are still responsible for the particular temporalizations of our existence—this is what Heidegger means by authenticity (Hoy 2009, 59). As shown in these videos, the documentation is usually invested with the flickering hope that the images will bring forth some kind of historical truth, in contrast to the overwhelming nature of the event during its unfolding. This anticipation of truth can be very personal, and the meanings of this truth can also be highly subjective and fluctuating. Those protestors who realized how little they were in control invested their emotions and thinking in their works, which they hope would form an intersubjectivity with the future audience.

Let us examine a few examples. These films have all been publicly screened or made available online, but their completion was also meant to be temporary, indirectly acknowledging the impossibility of enclosure. Although they were active participants in the movement, the filmmakers believe in—and present their films as a commitment to—documentation, from which reflection can arise. Made by Umbrella Movement participants, these works show the possibilities of the coexistence of, and the inevitable tensions between, vita contemplativa and vita activa.

Horatio Tsoi (蔡錦源), a freelance television producer and scriptwriter, had been an active OCLP advocate since 2013 and had openly pledged his commitment to the Umbrella Movement. Having worked in television productionPage 122 → for

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