The Essay Machine: Kao Chung-Li’s Practice to Cinematic Idea (1984-2010)

• Main Authors: Wan-Yin CHEN, 陳琬尹
• Other Authors: Song-Yong SING
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2015
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/8qzyxd

碩士 === 國立臺南藝術大學 === 動畫藝術與影像美學研究所 === 103 === 　　In the 1900s, discussions between documentaries and experimental cinema had a tendency toward the author’s subjectively involved into the text. Through the author’s subjective involving, filmmakers attempt to explore the subject they are interested in and the media they used. The process that filmmakers explain how they show the subject and deal with media is essayistic and critical. Therefore, more and more scholars and critiques define these works as “essay film”, which the word “essay” is rooted in the literacy tradition. In Laura Rascaroli’s book The Personal. Camera: Subjective Cinema and the Essay Film (2009), she proposed delicately three modes of essay film: reflectiveness, subjectivity, and plurality. 　　This thesis focuses on a Taiwanese artist, Kao Chung-Li, who has multiple identities as a photographer, an 8mm film-maker and an artist since 1980s. By examining his oeuvres from 1984 to 2010, including photography, experimental film, installation, and self-invented machine and so on, this research rethinks visual culture, film theory and the aesthetic of cinema in the position of the post-cold war world situation. Kao Chung-Li’s practice not only fits into the definition of “essay film” by Laura Rascaroli, but also enriches the way “essay film” can be expressed by his installation technique. Kao Chung-Li explores the cinematic ideas through both films and self-invented machines, which is the strategy to struggle with western paradigm.