This film is divided into three parts, which are composed of three non-existent towers. The first one is Famensi tower(rebuilt after half collapsed in 1986 in China), the second one is the Tatlin tower, the Third World Monument in the Soviet regime of Soviet Union (which has the ambition to surpass the iron tower of Paris since he appeared, but in fact, the national power of the Soviet Union only allowed him to stay on the paper and make noise ). The third tower is Babel Tower (it's said that the tower of heaven built by the people in Babylon violated the gods, which destroyed it and thus divided human language into countless kinds, making people unable to communicate. It symbolizes the establishment of human language and the collapse of using the same language.)
♦️First part - Famensi Tower.
Even though the light and shadow of the tower are slowly and hard to describe the shape of the tower and even every inch of the details of tower. The printer appears completely inconsistent patterns after printing the light and shadow of the tower. This is a language that ignores another language. In 1986, when the tower collapsed, the base underground palace was discovered, archaeologists found out a kind of color the so-called "secret color" of "secret color (olive green)porcelain” had been an archaeological problem for thousands of years (from the Tang Dynasty) which also meant the collapse of some previous wrong understanding.
The connection between the first paragraph and the second paragraph is the 16mm film. I scratch the word "tower" on the 16mm film and the shape of this character was a copy of the Famensi tower’s stone cut inscription.
♦️Second part - Tatlin Tower.
I deconstructed Tatlin tower with the painting of suprematism Malevich. It is a kind of contradiction and conflict in artistic language between two people who are identical in form but completely different in essence and purpose. It seems to be able to communicate. however they held totally different point and opinion. It's like people and trees separated by windows at the back. At this time, the background sound shows the recording clip of London district line subway: "today's district subway goes to tower hill but no longer to the East". Only people's language and imagination can connect things. As Derrida said, there is no other thing outside the text.
♦️Third part - Tower Babel.
The second and third sections are connected by screens, from double screen to multi screen, and finally is the appearance and collapse of the image of Babel Tower. The entanglement and fusion of the two spheres is the binary opposition and melting of language.
If language and translation create misunderstandings, why not make them into games.
Thesis:
The theme of the tower project is language and translation. Translation is not only about the actual effect of language communication between people. In modern life, translation is also reflected in people and machines, screens and even symbolic language Communication. How much we rely on our language to express or describe things, how much we should be more skeptical about whether he is betraying what we want to express. I am using my language, or I am adapting to the experience, pressure or pleasure brought by a set of fixed programs, or I am using this metalanguage system to assemble a new language system. And this kind of doubt itself will also be a language, a language of emotional power system. The more clearly we sort out our logic, seek for words with common comprehensible attributes of a certain mode of thinking to mark, and standardize the language system with this precision, we will find that there is a kind of inertia of thinking running through it. The change of reference and the flow of language patterns eventually lead our language to a more abstract, tangled and reciprocating state.
All words are lies when they are used to depict. They enlarge, concentrate, or abstract or hide the logic of things. Perhaps what is really close to things themselves is to keep silent. Language eventually becomes a game, or cultural relic.