Whether with high definition video or digitized morphing 16mm film, the over-layered moving image showing on a digital screen is to address the overflow and obtainability of today’s transiting human migration and visual memory. I emphasized on the materiality of the imagemaking process by overlaying, blurring and abstracting them. The project explores the possibilities of “physical” contact between the skins of digital data. By using the “difference” mixing mode and “optical flow” time-interpolation mode in Adobe Premiere, the computer analyzes the pixels and let one 16mm celluloid frame adapt, morph and become the next image data. Vertically and horizontally running HD video signals react to each other as their highlight and shadow collide. The digital screen bleeds out infinite video in flux, alive and uncertain, just like the constantly reciprocating and changing world.

It is about the human flow. It is the refusal to use representational images to explicitly represent one culture or ideology, but to take metaphor in these technological tools that have borne the weight of historic and contemporary conflicts. It is both individual image-memory and collective memory of the ghosting past.

Hua Xi Zi works and thinks about light and the experience of seeing – in exploring the flowing life and one’s relation with outside systems. From celluloid film, analogue video signal to digital video processing, screen-based and optical projections, installed and performed, Xi Zi questions the existing methods of shadow-image production by experimenting with alternative ways to “un-expose.” It is the refusal to use representational images to explicitly represent one topic, community, or ideology. Her practice and research turned into materiality while asking questions about spectatorship and participation – seeking for the tenderness that withholds freedom and forgiveness. Hua Xi Zi received her MFA in Film, Video, New Media and Animation at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and BA in Cinema and Media Studies at University of Southern California.