Trilogies 2015, 3-screen moving image installation, 65′

susan pui san lok, RoCH Trilogies, 2015, QUAD installation views

Trilogies draws on fan uploads of various television adaptations of The Condor Trilogy produced between Hong Kong, China, Taiwan and Singapore, and first broadcast terrestrially between 1983 and 2015. Trilogies cuts thirteen different versions spanning three decades into three separate screen sequences, condensing around 400 hours of footage into 195 minutes. One screen corresponds with variations on part one of the trilogy, Legend of the Condor Heroes (1983, 2003, 2008 versions); a second screen corresponds with part two, Return of the Condor Heroes (1983, 1984, 1995, 1998, 2006, 2014 versions); a third screen corresponds with part three, Heaven Sword, Dragon Sabre (1986, 1993, 2003, 2009 versions). Each sequence focuses on moments depicting a certain gravity-defying lightness or weightlessness emblematic of the genre, while the variously degraded images reflect both the changing stylistics of wuxia along with technological shifts in the medium. Removed from their narrative contexts, the repetitive movements produce a hypnotizing and exhausting an/aesthetics of weightlessness, speaking to fantasies of literal and metaphorical flight.

Trilogies (2015) was commissioned for RoCH Fans and Legends, solo exhibitions at QUAD (2015) and CFCCA (2016). Trilogies LIVE (2016) was a single-channel version with live sound collaborations was created for a one-off screening at HOME Cinema, Manchester, 16 June 2016.