01 Sep 2015

House of Shyness a Film by Tiong Ang and Alejandro Ramirez

At night, a young woman roams the city in search of something unknown. She observes the buildings, walks the streets, while reflecting on her sense of belonging to the urban sprawl, and to its history. As the woman moves through space, her memories and thoughts become ravelled with the architecture and lights that pervade the environment. Using a mobile phone she establishes a strange emotional connection with a young man, who apparently is unable to leave his room. The man seems idle, bored, locked in himself while at the same time restlessly consulting books and staring at his mobile phone. When day comes, other characters complicate the woman's quest. In the end, help is offered from different sides. It might be that the outcome is not the one she expected.

Tiong Ang and Alejandro Ramirez collaborated to produce this film shot in Taipei, Taiwan. The film is a response to the challenge of creating under uncertain production conditions and shared authorship. Coming from separate artistic practices, the artists merged hybrid identity, collective memory and political schisms as catalysts for production. Ang and Ramirez fabricated a narrative executed by nameless characters that follow unexpected motivations. The piece is assembled in such a way that urban space is given the importance of an entity, placed between cultural and personal subjectivities, while exploring how these concepts collide. Using the Taipei Fine Arts Museum as a backdrop, the film is constructed as an observational exercise of dissociation, breaking apart preconceptions and platitudes while working in an unknown environment.

HOUSE OF SHYNESS was an evolving process in which chance was welcomed as a creative impulse. The film uses diverse improvisational techniques in close relation with the road-movie genre and Asian art house cinema aesthetics. It constructs performative situations that are transformed into a storyline. These 'situations' are staged using clear but nonetheless minimal ideas as script, in order to investigate personal stories (of the authors), collective creation (of the crew), the history of the city, and the motivations for artistic production. The plot unfolds and creates itself as the authors become familiar with the unfamiliar: adapting, walking impromptu, following the rhythm of the city.

HOUSE OF SHYNESS was originally produced during a research and production period in Taipei for the exhibition project 'Aesthetic Jam' at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum in 2014. Actors were cast in the museum, during a performative act. All crew members, including the musicians, are visual artists. Additional shooting and post-production were done in Amsterdam. The film was shown for the first time at the '1st Research Pavilion / Experimentality', a collateral event of the 'Biennale di Venezia 2015'.

HOUSE OF SHYNESS | 2015 | HD digital film | 45:39 minutes | Mandarin spoken, with English subtitles

Cast Yin Zi-Jieh, Hsu Rong-Hua, Chen En-Zheng, Lin Yu-Huei, Chang Nai-Wen
Tiong Ang original concept, writer, producer | Alejandro Ramirez writer, cinematographer, montage, sound design | Audrey Wang writer, voice over, production assistant | Hsu Hsun-Hsiang (Pbh) electronic music composer | You-Na Wang production assistant, location scout | Heekyung Ryu 'haegeum' musician, production assistant | Chiu Po-Ting general assistant, line producer | Hongjohn Lin, Henk Slager executive producers

Thanks to Taipei Fine Arts Museum / Taipei National University of the Arts (School of Visual Arts) / University of The Arts Utrecht (MaHKU) / Mondriaan Fund, The Netherlands