April 2024
VMAC Article
DV, Poor Image, Zombie Media
Text: Myra Chan
Translation: Phoebe Wong
As Y2K retro culture sweeps the globe, it’s become fashionable to use AI tools such as Replica and Remini to create images in the iconic PlayStation 2 gaming look. The new technology enables the revival of gaming aesthetics from over two decades ago and reminds me of my own unmet interest in and fondness for digital video (DV) tapes. AI technology is now being used in ultra-high-definition smartphone cameras and image restoration. AI-generated images and videotapes seem to exist in different universes, but they embody the same latent memories and desires for heterogeneous images.
Back in 2021, when I was working at Videotage, I had the idea of creating a work for my Master’s degree using MiniDV tapes, focusing on everyday life, the passage of time, and history. The reason was simple: I had seen a Japanese documentary filmed on MiniDV, “Odoriko” (English title: Nude at Heart), which showed ageing striptease dancers from the bygone Showa era. The low-quality—soft and blurry—yet hauntingly beautiful images captivated me and sparked my interest in experimenting with MiniDV. I thought that having access to this medium and the relevant literature at my workplace would facilitate my project. However, perhaps because of this, I have yet to complete the video.
Attracted to the unique quality of MiniDV, I’ve been thinking about how to use it and, more importantly, why this medium. I’m not familiar with MiniDV, yet I don’t consider it an old medium; rather, it belongs to the hazy line between new and old and is more comparable to what media archaeologist Jussi Parikka refers to as “Zombie Media.” Instead of nostalgia, I like to refer to it as an enigmatic living-dead object.
Looking back at the history of video technology that began in the 1960s, Standard DV, MiniDV, and Sony’s first digital camcorder, the DCR-VX1000, all launched in 1995, were products that marked the transition from analogue to digital formats. MiniDV is less grainy than analogue tape (VHS, V8, Hi8, etc.) and has a clearer picture, but not as good as the new generation of high-definition (HD) digital video. Although it is a digital medium, recording with binary digital signals of 0 and 1, it does not support direct playback or rewriting. MiniDV, as an intermediary presence, heralded the digital era in the 1990s and added a layer of imagination to the tracing of Hong Kong’s video history.
I delved into the Videotage Media Art Collection (VMAC) to look for ideas and insights. I came across two publications, both of which were published around the new millennium: Cao Kai’s Record and Experiment: The Prehistory of Digital Video Imaging and May Fung’s exhibition catalogue i-GENERATIONs: Independent, Experimental and Alternative Creations from the 60s to Now. They trace the history of videography and offer insights into DV’s development in China and Hong Kong. They showcase avant-garde works by filmmakers and artists and explore how key institutions, film festivals, and awards have shaped the field.
Fung’s i-GENERATIONs covers Hong Kong’s independent film and video production since the 1960s, decade by decade, highlighting media evolution: from 16mm and 8mm film to Super 8, home video tapes, and finally digital video (DV). In the mid-to-late 1990s, a new generation of DV artists emerged, including Rita Hui, Ip Yuk-yiu, Mark Chan, and Hung Keung, to mention a few. The easy-to-carry and easy-to-shoot DV enabled the younger generation to break free from mainstream film, producing experimental videos characterised by personalisation and even voyeuristic qualities.
These chronological narratives undoubtedly help the reader follow the history of DV production. However, media archaeology, which emphasises parallel, interconnected, and cyclical concepts of time, finds the reduced developmental history insufficiently revealing. The notion of ‘zombie media’ suggests that media such as MiniDV, while seemingly obsolete, continue to influence contemporary practices and aesthetics, challenging linear historical narratives and highlighting the complexity of technological and cultural transitions.
Anyway, the concerns highlighted in the article ‘The New DV Generation’ included in i-GENERATIONs piqued my curiosity. The author wonders, “Who knows what the world will be like in the next twenty years? Will Hong Kong be the same? Will digital camcorders eventually become obsolete?”
The K-pop girl group NewJeans’s music video “Ditto” has recently sparked a DV craze, reviving interest in obsolete CCD cameras and old camcorders. The aesthetics of “poor images” have permeated commercial markets and become part of popular culture, influencing our buying patterns and lifestyles. Taking media artist and theorist Hito Steyerl’s statement about poor images—“it is about defiance and appropriation just as it is about conformism and exploitation,” as she says in her critical essay ‘In Defense of the Poor Image’—I’d like to ask how we should use them today to raise new questions and articulate a different perspective.
I kept digging. In some of the DV works in the VMAC, I saw how artists were using consumer-grade digital camcorders to explore our history and contemporary culture. Particularly notable were works by female artists, such as Phoebe Man’s ‘Rati’ (2000– 2001), which uses humour to suss out gender politics in cyberspace, and artist-historian Linda Lai’s ‘Voices Seen, Images Heard’ (2009), which reflects on the construction of the image of Hong Kong and its history through a collage of her video diaries and found footage. I will also mention that, in her seminal text, ‘Video Art in Hong Kong: Organologic Sketches for a Dispersive History’, Lai draws attention to the distinctive quality of MiniDV:
John Wong, then my colleague, showed me a trial piece made on MiniDV tapes, composed of an image sequence of one short devolving visually in 12 rounds of generation loss of pixel resolution. Made in the late 1990s, this small experiment was a tribute to the magnetic-tape phase of video, but using a digital video camcorder. His later work, ‘The Man with the Mobile Phone’ (2003, 5 min), is reflective of the different digital formats and the pixel effects of resulting images.
Perhaps John Wong’s little experiment can inspire us, in the reality of diverse modes of image-making and the overlap of old and new, to question technology and art-making through diminished, blurred, and distorted variants and to further develop reflexive strategies. I haven’t reached any conclusions yet. This article feels like a brief recap, and I look forward to other imaginations and possibilities in the future.
(The views and opinions expressed in this article published are those of the author/s. They do not necessarily represent the views of VMAC.)
Staff Pick
Image Bite, 2018
In 2018, Videotage curated the “Image Bite” programme. From late March to June of that year, eight eateries in the North Point district screened videos by local artists.
The Chinese title of the programme is originally a common Hong Kong slang expression, meaning ‘eating while watching TV’. Around the Oi! Artspace, video works were played on televisions in nearby Cha Chaan Tengs, snack and dessert shops, bringing art to the public.
The curator selected a number of down-to-earth works that complemented the exhibition spaces, creating a greater sense of immersion and a unique viewing experience. For example, Kwan Sheung Chi’s ‘Drinking a Glass of Hot Chocolate with a Fork’, as a site-specific work, adds another layer of meaning to the work. I can’t help but wonder about the reactions of customers when they encounter this “unexpected guest.” Would they dismiss it? Or would they nod with a smile and begin to enjoy their own milk tea with a fork?
“Image Bite” goes beyond the confines of art galleries and museums, bringing art into everyday life and challenging our perception of daily routines.
About VMAC Newsletter
VMAC, Videotage’s collection of video and media arts, is a witness to the development of video and media culture in Hong Kong over the past 35 years. Featuring artists from varied backgrounds, VMAC covers diverse genres including shorts, video essays, experimental films and animations. VMAC Newsletter, published on a bi-monthly basis, provides an up-to-date conversation on media arts and their preservation while highlighting the collection and its contextual materials.