Samantha Culp » Projects

Many Mansions (2009)

shc — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 15:23:54 +0000

a film by Samantha Culp and Nicolas Sauret, currently in post-production

A blend of documentary and fiction, “Many Mansions” explores the mythical structures of Hong Kong’s Chungking Mansions.

(supported by a Fonds des Artists grant, Alliance Française, HK)

Sign (Editor, 2008)

shc — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 16:37:51 +0000

single-channel video by artist Warren Leung Chi Wo

Title: “Sign”
Type: Video by artist Leung Chi Wo (Hong Kong)
Editor and Music Supervisor: Samantha Culp
Music: Lullatone
Details: HDV, PAL, 13 min., English subtitle, 2008

Description:
Sign is a 2-part video work by Leung Chi Wo exploring the idea of non-mainstream communication and the meaning of human reality overloaded by mass media.

Part I is an educational video featuring deaf teacher Laisarn (Laisarn Leong) and her shadow (Belle Reily) about the idea of baby signs in Auslan(Australian Sign Language) and the demonstration of basic signs with which parents can actually learn to communicate with their children whoever deaf or hearing. Whereas Laisarn communicates with the audience in Auslan, her shadow does it with her eyes and mind.

Part II is a fictional video showing a young mother in communication with her baby in Auslan. Though taking place in a peaceful and pleasant atmosphere, the mother tries to convey the words that she comes across every day, which can be harsh or discomforting. The juxtaposition of loving expression and hostile meaning depicts a surrealistic scene of our schizophrenic world. The vocabulary here is chosen from The Canberra Times.

Video editing by Samantha Culp; music by Lullatone.

More information

Ghost Metropolis (2008)

shc — Thu, 01 May 2008 07:44:24 +0000

video/installation

A video diptych of texts created in collaboration with an East African asylum-seeker in Hong Kong, one “fiction,” one “non-fiction,” presented together to emphasize the blurring of reality and dreams to Hong Kong’s hidden refugee community. Exhibited with snapshots of the writer’s illegal home in Hong Kong.

First exhibited in “CHiE! – Culture Sieges Politics” at Osage Gallery, HK (March 15-April 27, 2008). Curators: Jessie Chang and Jaspar Lau Kin Wah.
More information here.
Catalogue information here.

Hot and Cold (2008)

shc — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 14:34:22 +0000

performance/installation

The performer adds clothing and heating elements until she is hot (accompanied by desert animal documentary video), then removes all until she is cold (accompanied by arctic animal documentary video). Continue to cycle for set length of time.

Fo Tan Open Studios 2008, Embassy Projects Studio, Hong Kong, January 22, 2008

POV: A Night of Experimental Sights & Sounds (Coordinator, 2008)

shc — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 16:28:33 +0000

video/sound program

POV: A Night of Experimental Sights and Sounds
Video and Sound Program Curated by Sunshine Wong and Mat Steel, Coordinated by Samantha Culp and Beatrix Pang, Jan 4 2008
Presented at KLUUBB, Wanchai, Hong Kong

POV is an ongoing series of events with a focus on sound and video art, each time inviting different guests to curate a program from their personal network of friends and contacts. The first in the series will see Mat Steel and Sunshine Wong presenting a selection of experimental video work by artists based in and around Sheffield and Berlin, alongside abstract sounds from their personal music collections.

Take Some Rest (Curator, 2007)

shc — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 09:01:41 +0000

video program for Asian Art Biennale 2007, Taiwan

(still from a video by Beatrix Pang)

TAKE SOME REST: New Videos from the Edge of Hong Kong
Curated by Ashley Wong and Samantha Culp for VIDEOTAGE
Presented at the Asian Art Biennale 2007, National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Taichung, Taiwan

Artists: Chi Jang Yin, Kwan Sheung-Chi, Warren Leung Chi-Wo, Beatrix Pang, Eric Siu, Wong Wai-Nap, Doris Wong Wai-Yin & Project Big Bang (Amy Cheung, Bo Zheng, Erkka Nissinen, Joseph Chan, Kwan Ng, Mark Fell)

Videotage started more than 20 years ago as a collective and platform for independent, challenging video works from Hong Kong. Decades later, many have said that “Hong Kong has no more video art.” But perhaps this is not the whole truth. The program “Take Some Rest,” curated by Ashley Wong and Samantha Culp for Videotage, aims to explore the current state of video and works in the city and its complex borders. Who are the new pioneers, and how might they continue to surprise, especially in an age where video itself has become “old media”? With 2007 marking the 10th anniversary of Hong Kong’s handover from Britain to Hong Kong, how are artists and cultural agitators playing with real and symbolic time, and blurring the lines between traditional genres and identities? In an ever-changing city(-state) born of an unprecedented historical situation, how are themes of transformation, loss, and marginality reflected? Perhaps Hong Kong video art has not disappeared—it’s just been in hibernation. In TAKE SOME REST, current Hong Kong video art comes out to play… even in the form of a waking dream, where slumber can be seen as a state of subversion.

Altamont (2007)

shc — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 15:59:09 +0000

drawing

Exhibited at the first edition of “Let’s Bolt,” curated by Metro Color Collision with Lumi Tan
August 2007, Clemente Soto Velez Cultural Center, New York

More information here.

The Gum Bar

shc — Sat, 12 May 2007 15:09:51 +0000

(performance 2007)

at Hong Kong art events, designed to explore different concepts of service, consumption, and exchange. In “Gum Bar” (Noufaux Riche festival, 2007), the artist sold specialty gum cocktails in the context of a bar, and then collected the chewed remains from her customers in a bucket…

The Girl with the Yes Tape

shc — Sun, 15 Apr 2007 10:09:39 +0000

Performance & Installation (VHS copy of “Yessongs”, television, fabricated vintage stickers, headphones, candles, shag rug, pillows, photograph, text)
“Pop I.D.” curated by Andrew Guthrie, Kapok, Hong Kong, April-May 2007

The re-enactment of a teenage memory, and awkward insertion of a highly-personal bubble into social space. This piece seeks to explore the sacred rituals of fandom, the nature of performance in everyday life, alone and in public, and also the boundary between audience and participant.

Press:

Installation Text (download PDF):
The Girl with the Yes Tape

One night in high school, I went to a party at my friend’s house. The party was typical in many ways—kids hanging out, raiding the parents’ liquor cabinet, smoking cigarettes in the backyard. But at some point in the evening, an unfamiliar girl came into the living room where many of us were lounging. My friend A and I were laughing about another friend who was making out with some guy upstairs, so at first we didn’t really notice her.

This girl, dressed in her vintage-70’s finest, strutted into the room purposefully. She sat down in front of the TV, rummaged through her large leather-fringed bag, pulled out a VHS tape, and pushed it into the VCR. The opening credits of the VHS began and she pushed herself up even closer to the TV. The tape finally blared into shaky-color brilliance: a rock band, a concert movie.

A few of us in the room got curious– what exactly were we watching? When asked, she handed the tape cover back to somebody. YES: Yessongs. She sat there and watched intently, drinking out of a cup, occasionally rocking out. At one point I left to talk to somebody, then returned. She was still there. She sat and watched the whole thing. Then, as the tape wound down, she put it back in the case, back in her bag, and left.

I never found out who she was, or why she had brought the tape. All I know is that I hope she’s still out there, trucking Yessongs around from party to high school party. Pushing herself up close to the TV to watch the strobe lights gleam off some sequins and a six-string bass. Sipping whiskey from a plastic cup. Occasionally rocking out. And then disappearing into the endless night. The girl with the Yes tape.

- Samantha Culp
April 2007

Ghost Eyes (Curator, 2006)

shc — Wed, 01 Nov 2006 15:20:18 +0000

video program

(video still from “OP,” Eric Siu)

“Ghost Eyes/陰陽眼 (Yam Yeung Ngaan):
Strange Visions from Hong Kong and Beyond”
Videos by: Wanda Choi Wai Chi, Chow Tsz-Kwan, Tyler Coburn, Joe Hsieh, Joseph Kwan Zhi Yue, Hung Chi Wing, Ma Chun Fu, Erkka Nissinen (w/Valter Kokot and Fabian Dorch), Eric Siu Chi Man, Martin Skauen, Jervis Suen
Presented October 2006 at the Footscray Audio Visual Social Club, Victoria, Australia

Curated by Samantha Culp, FUSE Artist-in-Residence at Videotage, Hong Kong, October 2006
With additional support from Hong Kong IFVA (the Independent Film and Video Festival), the Hong Kong Art Center, and the School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong

Hong Kong doesn’t really have Halloween – perhaps because every other day of the year is already occupied with thoughts of ghosts, demons, and the uncanny. For instance, the concept of “ghost eyes”—the actual physiological difference in the eyeballs of those who can see ghosts or supernatural things. Since most of us are not blessed (or cursed) with “ghost eyes,” here is a substitute pair for you to try on. Mostly from Hong Kong (with a few from fellow superstitious nation Taiwan, and other international locales thrown in for colonial good measure), this selection of videos explore themes of horror, fear, and the grotesque in unique and surprising ways. Some are narratives that reveal ghosts or hidden evils, while others are more experimental works that play with darkness and the grotesque (often in combination with comedy). This Halloween, enjoy a little (trick-or) treat from HK, and peer through the lens of “ghost eyes” for a short while.