Vik's Visual Art

Keep Dancing

Interactive Installation

Tromsø, Norway, 2008

 

MaxMsp technical supported by HC Gilje and Ellen Røed

 

Before the handover of Hong Kong to China in 1997, Chairman Tang said to Hong Kong people that ' Keep dancing and keep horse racing.' Nightlife and horse racing culture was imported from Britain when Hong Kong was a colonial of Britain. Tang promised to keep Hong Kong to be stable and not to be changed for 50 years. His statement becomes feeling like nostalgia now a day. We could see the continuum of changes when time passed by.

 

In this installation "Keep Dancing", an advertisement video clip of an alcoholic drink in Hong Kong 80s is presented in a Karaoke room, and the speed and sound of the video clip are maintained by the breath-length of the audiences through the microphone.

 

These video clips have the strong colonial aura. The female singer, Frances Yip in Hong Kong was singing, 'Hey! Big Spender! 'with the western boys and girl dancers in a Broadway Musical kind of scenery. The 80s was the economic blossoming era of Hong Kong. The truth is that there were plenty of big spenders in early 80s Hong Kong. The nightlife was the thermometer of the economy in Hong Kong. After the late 80s , we experienced many unstable economic factors i.e. the uncertainty of political system changes, the breaking of globe economics bubble, the SARS diseases and swine flu. This fantasy of glamorous big spender life was turned down. Many Night Club were closed and moved to Macau and Mainland China, after the opening of the market in Mainland China. Hong Kong people orientated their business to North. In the drastic competitions of the economic blossoming Mainland China, Hong Kong people are working hard like short of breath to re-discover another paradise of the big spender lifestyle and keep dancing!

 

 

 

 

 

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