The Metamorphosis
2024
Video
9’55
Dimensions variable
This work is my undergraduate graduation design, which incorporates the theory
of haptic film.
During the creative process, I conducted a relatively systematic study of the haptic film theory that emerged from Maurice Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology and Gilles Deleuze's philosophical thoughts. I also reviewed the research of prominent scholars in this field, Vivian Sobchack and Laura Marks, using their insights as practical guidance for my graduation design.
Visual centralism has marginalized other senses, whereas haptic film advocates a viewing experience that is close to touch rather than distant and panoramic. My work aims to deconstruct the philosophical ideas within this theory and explores the reconstruction of the relationship between images and audiences: how to shift from scrutiny and reading to engagement and cognition. I seek to investigate in this work how people engage and cognize each other, as well as how audiences engage and cognize images.
My work uses the background setting from Kafka's classic novel "The Metamorphosis," telling the story of a protagonist who wakes up one day to find himself transformed into an insect, observing the events outside through a door gap.