Art Beats Festival 24

Kurangkan Maju (Ng Shu Jun)

15min 31s – 16:9

Synopsis

Through the lens, I see time slip silently by and also loudly. In modern times, we always rush from nowhere but unconsciously trap ourselves in nowhere at the same time. That’s the moment I rediscovered the place where I was born and grew closer, carefully and slowly to the environment. I discovered the pieces in time.

Artist Statement

As a filmmaker, I have always been interested in exploring the landscape and its relationship with time. The untold and silent voices of the landscapes in which we live our everyday lives are often overlooked and forgotten in the hustle and bustle of progress. During the making of the video, I kept thinking and asking myself about the rapid and tremendous changes in the urban landscape and how it affected one’s everyday quality of life and what has been left behind in the overwhelming desire for development and ‘progress’. Working with underground musician Azmyl Yunor’s improvised instrumental song ‘Kurangkan Maju’ (‘slow down progress’ in Malay), the work tries to push further the visceral ‘experiencing’ of our surroundings in the act of filmmaking. The story is told in a non-verbal manner which turns the focus on the flow of the song’s patient revelation and moving images – all caught in the relationship of time, space, and memory in the face of relentless modernity.

Ng Shu Jun

A-Jun was born in Klang, Malaysia, and is currently a graduate student of the MA Program in Communication, at NCCU Taiwan. As a filmmaker and researcher, she is enthusiastic about exploring Southeast Asian culture and arts and is currently working on a documentary project in Northern Thailand.