Both Sides Now 2: David Blandy and Wong Ping

CFCCA (Centre for Chinese Contemporary Art, Manchester), Videotage and Videoclub present films each from UK based artist David Blandy, and Hong Kong artist Wong Ping. Both artists are currently showing work in CFCCA’s Both Sides Now 2 exhibition, which explores themes of nationality and identity, until Sun 6 Dec 2015.

David Blandy is an artist who works with the moving image in the digital world, from YouTube tutorials, music videos, television series, anime and the narrative sections of computer games; highlighting our relationship with popular culture and investigating what makes us who we are. He lives and works in London and Brighton and is represented by Seventeen Gallery, London.

Child of the Atom (2010), 14 mins, 7 secs

David Blandy’s grandfather, held as a POW in Malaya and Taiwan from 1942, always believed that his life was saved by the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. Generated by an underlying guilt about his own and also his daughter’s existence, Blandy’s film documents their visit to Hiroshima to literally and symbolically search for their ‘origins’.

Tutorial: How to make a short video about extinction (2014), 9 mins 48 secs

A step by step tutorial showing you how to make a short video about extinction, using just the internet and video editing software.

Wong Ping is a Cantonese animator and director based in Hong Kong,  mixing topics such as teenage lust, shame and sexual suppression with a surprisingly fresh and luscious colour palette. Strange, bright and sometimes obscene, this is the highly stylized, animated wonderland constructed by Wong Ping, where innocence and desire coexist comfortably without contradiction.

The Other side, 2015, 8 mins

Commissioned for the M+ Moving Images exhibition, The Other Side uses the metaphor of birth to depict the process immigration (emigration): a daunting and disorienting experience that is nonetheless imbued with hope. Combining footage shot by the artist with his delightful animation work, the synchronized dual-channel videos are connected through a voice over. The result is a subtle depiction of key junctures in human life.

An Emo Nose, 2015, 5 mins

A bittersweet story of a man’s strained relationship with his depressed and alienated nose explores his loneliness after his nose tragically decides to leave him. As a result of his nose being gone, he loses interest in any kind of social activity and actually starts to enjoy the loneliness as he observes the ugliness of people around him. A metaphorical tale told in Wong Ping’s signature neon palette, this work subverts the idea of what it means to be an active participant in everyday life.

Jungle of Desire, 2015, 8 mins

Wong Ping’s newest work, recently shown at Things that can Happen in Hong Kong delve into the themes of sex and desire, anger and frustration in the current context of Hong Kong’s unsettling political atmosphere.