Lilan Yang

Lilan Yang

Chongqing, China

Most Known for...

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I Woke Up in the Morning N/A

Moving from total silence in the populous cityscape of Boston to a poem read over the emptiness of the Chihuahuan Desert, the structure of this film mirrors its narrated themes. It is a meditation on how our capacity for reflection is always at odds with the time and space we find ourselves in. We are further from the people and feelings we wish to be closer to; more able to articulate our longing for them when we least expect it, and often when it is too late.
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The Perfect Human 2023

Inspired by Jørgen Leth’s cult classic The Perfect Human (1968) which raises many simple yet philosophical questions about who the perfect human is, what it means to be human, or perfect, The Perfect Human applies unsupervised machine learning and experimental filmmaking techniques to re-examine and question the contested notion of perfection in the eyes of artificial intelligence. The remake of computer-generated moving images are transformed from digital to an analog artifact of transparencies which completes the cycles from analog film to digital video and back to 16mm, from motion pictures to still images, and then latent-space interpolation, from a proxy of human memories to a machine learning construct.
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Everything Comes Full Circle 2022

Following Wim Wenders' Paris, Texas (1984) filming locations from Houston, Texas to Los Angeles, California, I use a 16mm Bolex camera to capture the vastness of the American West. The footage draws me to reminisce about snippets of my everyday life. I contemplate how we perceive the world through analog optical apparatuses and how memories are multidimensional yet fragile. Our recollections of people and places can be distorted, unrecognizable, and fictitious. These memories would eventually diminish with the passing of time. Everything Comes Full Circle is a personal attempt to remember things that will soon be forgotten.