11th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art

FUTURE VISIONS Throughout cinematic history, ‘the future’ has served as a rich playground for filmmakers to explore the imagined, the taboo and the unknown. Today, anthropocentric concerns, including the accelerated rate of climate change, increased migration and the rapid pace of technological development, have catapulted anxieties about the future of the environment, culture and identity into the present, raising questions about the legacies of humankind. ‘Future Visions’ showcases a diverse selection of works by filmmakers and moving-image artists from Asia and the Pacific who are combining hallmarks of the science-fiction genre with heritage traditions and ancestral stories to reflect on contemporary environmental, political and cultural concerns. Set amid neon-drenched cityscapes, architectural ruins and futuristic worlds, these films variously reject, parody and expand on past ‘techno-orientalist’ tendencies of the dominant European and North American film industries. 1 These Asian and Pacific filmmakers present an array of imagined futures that delve into the realms of postcolonialism, the contemporary diaspora, queer identities and post-humanism. The looming threat of environmental disaster casts a long shadow over Asia and the Pacific, and is the first of four themes explored in ‘Future Visions’. The experience of past disasters, both human-made and natural, and the risks that further ecological change poses to future generations, have led to a surge in films imagining the end of the Earth. Due to its geographical location on the edge of a tectonic plate, the Japanese archipelago is vulnerable to natural disasters, such as tsunamis, flooding and earthquakes. These concerns play out in several films in the program, including Daihachi Yoshida’s Utsukushii Hoshi ( A Beautiful Star ) 2017, the story of a television weather presenter, who, after witnessing an alleged UFO, believes he is an extraterrestrial sent to Earth to warn of the impending climate emergency. The film uses absurdity as a counter-distancing effect, resulting in a passive, but poignant, call to action. Moving further into the realm of magical realism, Makoto Shinkai’s anime feature Suzume 2022 emphasises the ever-present risk that earthquakes pose to communities across Japan by anthropomorphising the threat itself, and portraying it as a giant interdimensional ‘worm’ that can only be kept at bay by sealing door-shaped portals. South Korean director Um Tae-hwa’s Concrete Utopia 2023 explores natural disaster as a catalyst for social change, by observing the destruction and rebuilding of societal structures within a tower block that has survived obliteration in the wake of an earthquake. Like conventional disaster films, these machinations reflect the underlying sense of dread caused by environmental events; however, they also give agency to the characters — and, by extension, the audience — to create meaningful and lasting change by acting in the present. Beyond the broader concerns of environmental futures, many filmmakers across the region challenge the oppressive nature of political regimes, how they affect culture and society and, above all, how opposing instilled ideologies can serve as a force for change. Cambodian director Rithy Panh’s provocative Everything Will Be Ok 2022 serves as a metaphor for countries that have previously witnessed turbulent political change, often due to colonial rule or totalitarian regimes. The concept of truth versus fiction informs the narratives of other films, including Hiruk-Pikuk Si Al-Kisah ( The Science of Fictions ) 2019 by Indonesian director Yosep Anggi Noen, which tells the story of a man, who, after witnessing a fake moon landing, becomes convinced he is an astronaut. The story is a complicated web of unreliable narratives, resulting in an alternate reality that melds political ideology, propaganda and fake news. While revolution can take years to enact, these films offer a more immediate space to rehearse scenarios of mobilisation in the hope of changing the future. Despite an emphasis on prefiguring the future, the films featured in this program are as much about memory as speculative thinking. Filmmakers in the Asian and Pacific region draw from tradition and memory to transgress the constraints of linear time. This form of temporal manipulation allows for the freedom to tell stories about the past from a future viewpoint, and to comment on the present. In Việt Nam, Trương Minh Quý's intimate feature Nhà cây ( The Tree House ) 2019 is a pseudo ethnographic recollection of the indigenous Cor and Rục peoples, told from the perspective of a former Vietnamese migrant living on Mars in the year 2045. Using a combination of 16mm and archival film footage, it is a powerful tale of ancestral memory and the experiences that make up our ideas of home. Similarly, Subash Thebe Limbu’s Ladhamba Tayem; Future Continuous 2023 moves between past and present to speculate on futures where indigenous knowledge is not only maintained, but forms the basis for new technologies. 2 The film envisions a conversation between a sixteenth-century Yakthung warrior and a time traveller, who discuss the precarious Production still from Delivery Dancer’s Sphere 2022 / Director: Ayoung Kim / Digital, colour, stereo, 25 minutes, South Korea, Korean (English subtitles) / Image courtesy: Oyster Films Production still from Dreaming the End (detail) 2023 / Director: Sin Wai Kin / Digital, colour, stereo, 22 minutes, Italy, English / Image courtesy: The artist / Commissioned by Fondazione Memmo, Rome / Produced by Mira Productions CINEMA 222 — 223 ASIAPACIFICTRIENNIAL