An Imaginary Museum
-The Arts which influenced me.
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title: The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction
form: critical essay
author: Walter Benjamin
creation date: 1935
comment: The first time I read this essay was in the class of "Visual cultural research". Since always, I was born and lived in an environement with full of advertisement, television, Internet; therefore, I had never imagined how the essence of art has been changed after the technique of reproduction art was invented. This essay ever since opened my horizon to see the photography/ film in a more profound and poetic way.
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title: Ways of Seeing
form: book
author: John Berger
creation date: 1972
comment: Being a girl, I felt touched when reading this book. John Berger described that women internalized the way of seeing as a man. When a woman watched herself, she used other's eyes to watch instead of having her own opinion. This book reminds me that how much the definition of "beauty" is - in most of the cases- just stereotype and how important it is to see things without being affected by the mainstream.
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title: The Man with Compound Eyes
form: fiction book
author: WU Ming-Yi
creation date: 2011
comment: This book makes WU Ming-Yi become my favorite Taiwanese writer. It tells the most beautiful story I've ever read. It's not only talking about an imaginary island or the environmental issue, but something much deeper. Something about losing, about love. This book basically became my artistic goal: I hope one day, I can tell a story as good as this one.
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title: Underground
form: fiction film
author: Emir Kusturica
creation date: 1995
comment: As everyone knows, Taiwan is always in a tough diplomatic situation. Through this film, I see the way Kusturica manage and represent the chaos of politics with the most magical realism way. I hope one day, I can tell the story of my country, Taiwan, with a talent and passion of Kusturica.
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title: Sans Toit Ni Loi
form: fiction film
author: Agnès Varda
creation date: 1985
comment: For me, the story looks simple while in the other hand, tells much more than what it describes literally. Merely through a homeless girl's own eyes, the audience can understand little by little the situations of the whole society, including certain moral problems that -in most of the case- makes the bourgeois class shy to face. I admired the honesty and the intelligence of the director Varda.
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title: Into the Wild
form: fiction film
author: Sean Penn
creation date: 2007
comment: This film is based on a true story. Christopher McCandless was such a brave person who gave up everything to pursue his dream - the dream of having absolute freedom, which most of people have dreamt of from time to time. Whenever I think of the word, freedom, this film comes to my mind.
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title: Factory
form: Photography
author: Chieh-Jen CHEN
creation date: 2003
comment: Photographer Chen shooted a lot of photos that tells story to denounce the injustice of the society. Like this photo, he doesn't hire any actor or model; instead, he targets his camera to the real workers who used to work in this used-to-be factory.
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title: Hollow Knight
form: Independant Game
author: Team Cherry
creation date: 2017
comment: This is not only a good game but also a great story. From one side, the art design of Hollow Knight inspired me with all those magical elements; from the other side, I love the way of the story-telling: Being the role of hollow knight, players get the knowledge of the whole story little by little. In the end, they will be so touched by realizing the huge and tragic setup of the story. Honestly, since I played this game, I started to love the invention of video game which allows the author to tell a story interactively.
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title: Manifeste Incertain
form: Book
author: Frédéric Pajak
creation date: 2012
comment: In February 2019, one of my publisher friend asked me to be a temporary translator and guide tour for Mr. Pajak when he visited Taiwan. While during the whole journey I was the only one who could actually speak in french, I had a really good time to chat with Mr. Pajak. I learnt the great mind which came from a humble heart of a great artist. Since then, I become a fan of this author and his poetic book. I discovered what kind of passion a real artist should have.
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title: Acoustic Ocean
form: documentary-like video
author: Ursula Biemann
creation date: 2018
comment: I saw her works at Taipei Fine Arts Museum. I love the way she tells the story of a relationship between nature and human. There's no more class between the nature and the human but more understanding and listening. The esthetics of nature is so beautiful that makes me always remember the image that she captures.
