Critique of Po-Hsien's Cyberhouse Room

11/27/01 Critique of Po-Hsien's Room in the Cyberfeminist House

by Karen Keifer-Boyd

Lin, Po-Hsien : Theorizing Your Room

Add a link that conceptualizes your room, perhaps to follow "my concept of home" add another link: "my room concept." Present why you selected games, shopping, and Memphis style "fun" furniture to fill a room or connect to the room. How does this house space convey the meaning of life, the purpose of life, or your inscribed or embodied experiences of life? Is it about desire? Is it about fulfilling needs beyond the basics of shelter? Are your needs met with games, shopping, and light-hearted playfulness? Convey in this presentation who the room is for. And, describe if you welcome changes or additions to your room or wish it to remain as you designed it. Perhaps discuss the relationship of play to art if that is a major focus for the room (see Ellen Dissanayaki--What is Art For? in which she sees a relation between the human behavior of play, ritual, and the natural need to create art.).

Lin, Po-Hsien:: Your Process Site

Something for fun-1: You might analyze yourself in terms of what you define as fun and who would feel included in this concept of fun. Relabel to be more descriptive.

To know more about me section is your self-sculpture and shows multiple facets of who you are. Very well presented in the complexity of how you see yourself.

In your conclusion you state: "a safe home base for women to pursue a career"

What is a safe home base for women to pursue a career or for men today without women in housewife or childcare roles?

What supports are needed to make it work for women and men. Do both need a wife? Or are there alternatives? What alternatives or ways do you image a safe home base for women to pursue careers?

Lin, Po-Hsien : Your Video

Good solution (and camera composition) to the parallel track idea with the sidewalk instead of the railroad. The library scene was fascinating and conveyed to me a similar metaphor of never meeting like the parallel tracks concept, only they become each other. Glad you were able to bring the video down to 7MB and revised it following suggestions from the email I sent on 11/8/01.
Production Statement revision suggestion: This three-minute video is of two Asian women in their early twenties who pursue emancipation to love each other in the USA, outside the constraints of their homeland. Using a visual metaphor of how parallel lines that in reality never meet, do meet in the two-dimensional conventions of linear perspective, the video concludes with the reality that their new found joyous Lesbian identity may be an illusion in their memories when in their homeland.
It seems that with the last line in the production statement that the walking away could dissolve into 2 or 3 stills (perhaps filtered with transparencies or something that seams dreamlike or unreal) with PhotoShop collages of Taiwan indicating memories of homeland, perhaps with a close-up shot of the two women looking close with faces almost touching to turning away and leaving the camera frame, one from right and the other from the left. It depends how important this conflict is to the purpose of the video. It comes across well that the 2 women become friends and begin to share a lot of fun times together with some clues to intimacy developing. I am not sure if the parallel lines in relation to their Taiwan culture comes across as an obstacle to their new found sexual identity.
I think it would enhance to add a production statement under the video in your process site.
I think there will be various interpretations of your video that may differ somewhat from your goal statement. The question, "what are you chasing for?" is intriguing in the use of the word "chasing." Chase makes me think of a game, like tag, "you are are it" and chase others. It is what many experienced on the playground when boys would chase girls and girls chased boys and girls chased girls. I am not sure if boys chased boys.
Technically, I would cut from the hug to the flag above to pan out and cut to dissolve of car leaving. This would streamline the video (reducing its memory load) and take out the jerky camera movement and jerky upward pan to flag. Since this camera jerky movements start the video it distracts and can be reduced and give the same impact. The helping with the suitcase and moving in together is good camera work and the image telling of their relationship in which their bodies overlap, then split and hands/bodies do not quite touch but intimacy is suggested.
The scene on the steps and in the park sharing a drink suggests intimacy. Walking with arm around shows that a relationship has developed further since the earlier scene of carrying the suitcase.
The page turning effect to begin the library scene is a good choice. The 2 women never meeting and then becoming each other coming toward the viewer conveys to me their identity found in each other--using the analogy of finding knowledge in the library. This is to me the most ingenious scene!
Silence and then the music starts again with "Hi Girls! Are you pursuing for--that vanishing point--in front of you" changes the meaning from where I thought it was going.
Grammatically, the word "for" is not needed.
There is so much written and discussed about women's erasure and invisibility--each means different things--the ending references these struggles for women. The one woman looks back, 2 times, and then stares back (at past, at obstacles?)
Why do you call the women, girls? Bad Girls, Good Girls, Grrrl, Girlie magazines--what connotation do you bring to the use of the term "girl" instead of "woman?"

11/27/01 Critique of Po-Hsien's Room in the Cyberfeminist House
			by Karen Keifer-Boyd
	Lin, Po-Hsien : Theorizing Your Room Add a link that conceptualizes your room, perhaps to follow "my concept of home" add another link: "my room concept." Present why you selected games, shopping, and Memphis style "fun" furniture to fill a room or connect to the room. How does this house space convey the meaning of life, the purpose of life, or your inscribed or embodied experiences of life? Is it about desire? Is it about fulfilling needs beyond the basics of shelter? Are your needs met with games, shopping, and light-hearted playfulness? Convey in this presentation who the room is for. And, describe if you welcome changes or additions to your room or wish it to remain as you designed it. Perhaps discuss the relationship of play to art if that is a major focus for the room (see Ellen Dissanayaki--What is Art For? in which she sees a relation between the human behavior of play, ritual, and the natural need to create art.).	Lin, Po-Hsien:: Your Process Site Something for fun-1: You might analyze yourself in terms of what you define as fun and who would feel included in this concept of fun. Relabel to be more descriptive. To know more about me section is your self-sculpture and shows multiple facets of who you are. Very well presented in the complexity of how you see yourself. In your conclusion you state: "a safe home base for women to pursue a career" What is a safe home base for women to pursue a career or for men today without women in housewife or childcare roles? What supports are needed to make it work for women and men. Do both need a wife? Or are there alternatives? What alternatives or ways do you image a safe home base for women to pursue careers?
Lin, Po-Hsien : Your Video Good solution (and camera composition) to the parallel track idea with the sidewalk instead of the railroad. The library scene was fascinating and conveyed to me a similar metaphor of never meeting like the parallel tracks concept, only they become each other. Glad you were able to bring the video down to 7MB and revised it following suggestions from the email I sent on 11/8/01. Production Statement revision suggestion: This three-minute video is of two Asian women in their early twenties who pursue emancipation to love each other in the USA, outside the constraints of their homeland. Using a visual metaphor of how parallel lines that in reality never meet, do meet in the two-dimensional conventions of linear perspective, the video concludes with the reality that their new found joyous Lesbian identity may be an illusion in their memories when in their homeland. It seems that with the last line in the production statement that the walking away could dissolve into 2 or 3 stills (perhaps filtered with transparencies or something that seams dreamlike or unreal) with PhotoShop collages of Taiwan indicating memories of homeland, perhaps with a close-up shot of the two women looking close with faces almost touching to turning away and leaving the camera frame, one from right and the other from the left. It depends how important this conflict is to the purpose of the video. It comes across well that the 2 women become friends and begin to share a lot of fun times together with some clues to intimacy developing. I am not sure if the parallel lines in relation to their Taiwan culture comes across as an obstacle to their new found sexual identity. I think it would enhance to add a production statement under the video in your process site. I think there will be various interpretations of your video that may differ somewhat from your goal statement. The question, "what are you chasing for?" is intriguing in the use of the word "chasing." Chase makes me think of a game, like tag, "you are are it" and chase others. It is what many experienced on the playground when boys would chase girls and girls chased boys and girls chased girls. I am not sure if boys chased boys. Technically, I would cut from the hug to the flag above to pan out and cut to dissolve of car leaving. This would streamline the video (reducing its memory load) and take out the jerky camera movement and jerky upward pan to flag. Since this camera jerky movements start the video it distracts and can be reduced and give the same impact. The helping with the suitcase and moving in together is good camera work and the image telling of their relationship in which their bodies overlap, then split and hands/bodies do not quite touch but intimacy is suggested. The scene on the steps and in the park sharing a drink suggests intimacy. Walking with arm around shows that a relationship has developed further since the earlier scene of carrying the suitcase. The page turning effect to begin the library scene is a good choice. The 2 women never meeting and then becoming each other coming toward the viewer conveys to me their identity found in each other--using the analogy of finding knowledge in the library. This is to me the most ingenious scene! Silence and then the music starts again with "Hi Girls! Are you pursuing for--that vanishing point--in front of you" changes the meaning from where I thought it was going. Grammatically, the word "for" is not needed. There is so much written and discussed about women's erasure and invisibility--each means different things--the ending references these struggles for women. The one woman looks back, 2 times, and then stares back (at past, at obstacles?) Why do you call the women, girls? Bad Girls, Good Girls, Grrrl, Girlie magazines--what connotation do you bring to the use of the term "girl" instead of "woman?"