World Premiere: 5 – 7 October, 2018
Experimental Theatre, Taipei

Since early 20th century, a huge laboratory became the paradise of the northernmost of the south, and a preparation site for future power expansion into Southeast Asia. The Nanyang Intelligence Bureau is initiated by visual artist Sow-Yee AU’s exploration into the relationship between physical body and movement of Chih-Chung CHENG (Ah Chung). Taking the obsession of locomotion in film history as the starting interface, AU tries to re-construct the imaginations of films or images in the audiences’ consciousness with the physical body as well as the intangible “sounds” it drives and the intangible “borders” it initiates. This is an alternative story of a secret agent, integrating texts excerpted from mythologies, epics, journals, historical / colonial texts, novels, spells of a shaman, Malay poetry and others. The Nanyang Intelligence Bureau attempts to question and imagine the circulation and transformation of Asian history.

 

Early works: 2003-2012 Excerpts from Performative Cinema by Sow-Yee Au

Ruins Prelude (2012): https://vimeo.com/40529869

The Birth of a Film (/Nation) 2014: https://vimeo.com/108805714