Directing
On a sweltering day, two men take a break in a swimming pool. Contact with water will reveal their true nature...
When hair begins to sprout wildly all over a man's body, his struggle becomes a resistance against subjugation in which the human anguish is palpable. Combining overlaid 16mm and Super 8 film loops, this manic new short by Singaporean duo Mark Chua and Lam Li Shuen is an exploration of the relationship between the body and the city in an ever violent society.
CAMPHOR TIGER CHASE is a walking expanded cinema performance that thinks alongside bruised bodies, balms for pain relief, and the chase for the ghosts of tigers. Using a DIY 16mm portable projector, the performance reimagines Tiger Balm, a traditional ointment from Singapore used to relieve pain and aches, in relation to one of its key ingredients camphor - historically used for celluloid production. Tiger balm ointment is used to create handmade chemigram sequences alongside inkjet-printed frames. Phantom spirits of tigers endlessly chase and are chased by the artists, veering between moments of both hope and futility of mass-manufactured relief to ever growing pains endured in our world.
Streaks of hair and colours weave together furiously, imploding into a frantic vision drawn between exuberance and anxiety. The filmmakers glued their hair to 16mm and Super 8 film leader loops that were played in overlay and modified with ink during projection in this textural expression of a manic feeling of being.
A live audiovisual performance along the Singapore River blending sound, text, and image by Lam Li Shuen, Mark Chua, Moe Myat May Zarchi, and Lin Htet Aung.
