Now through April 17, 2014, Ten Thousand Waves, an installation by filmmaker Isaac Julien, is on display in the Donald B. and Catherine C. Marron Atrium at New York's Museum of Modern Art. Featuring nine double-sided screens and over 20 speakers, this is the most ambitious staging to date of Julien's piece, which had been seen previously in Sydney, Berlin and other cities.
Ten Thousand Waves combines footage of a 2004 incident in which 23 Chinese immigrants drowned while working in England; the making of Ruan Ling-yu's most famous film, The Goddess, in 1934 Shanghai; and a retelling of how the water goddess Mazu rescues 16th-century fishermen.
Julien worked from a wide range of sources: satellite imagery, HD video, Super 16, archival footage of Shanghai, and more. Similarly, his immersive soundtrack includes Jah Wobble and the Chinese Dub Orchestra; transcripts of emergency radio calls; and a score by Maria de Alvear.
There’s no single viewing point for Ten Thousand Waves. The narrative spreads across all nine screens, at times interweaving the three narrative strands, at times juxtaposing stories and images. Uniquely for this installation, the screens are arrayed at different heights and angles. Viewers must move through the installation to follow the story, which can also be seen from several floors overlooking the atrium.
This is the most complicated video installation ever attempted by MoMA. The audiovisual staff initially tested the placement of screens with a 3D model of the atrium. Still, staffers had fewer than 20 days to hang and align the screens. They range in size from 16 to 23 feet wide. Audio Visual Design Manager Aaron Harrow tested 15 different materials before settling on a screen from Gerriets.
"One thing Julien definitely wanted was an evenly lit image from both the front and rear of the screen," Harrow said at a press preview. "Gerriets provided the most in terms of viewing angle, transition to light, brightest image, things like that. You'll notice there are no hot spots."
"One small change in the size or placement of the screens would snowball," Aaron Louis, Director of Audio Visual, noted. "We'd have to change all nine screens, all nine projectors. You're shooting angles, you have to shoot under or next to a screen."
"Some of the tolerances for the projector beams to avoid the sides of screens are a couple of inches," Harrow added.
When it came to projectors, Christie was the first choice. "We have a relationship with Christie," Harrow pointed out. "We know we can pick up a phone and say, 'Hey, I need help on this,' and they will be there." We do a lot of special events, and Christie's always our go-to firm. They're reliable. It's kind of a no-brainer."
The installation uses eight Christie WU14K-M projectors and one Christie HD14K-M projector—"pretty much off the shelf," Harrow pointed out. "Each projector has a different lens for different screen sizes and angles, but they're pretty much the stock M series."
A visual tour de force thanks to cinematographer Zhao Xiaoshi, Ten Thousand Waves also features an arresting performance by Zhao Tao as Ruan Ling-yu, perhaps the most accomplished Chinese actress of the 1930s.
Ten Thousand Waves also marks the return of Asian superstar Maggie Cheung, last seen here as a recovering heroin addict in Olivier Assayas's Clean (2004). Cheung won Best Actress for that project at the Cannes Film Festival, but apart from a cameo in Hot Summer Days has avoided movies until Julien persuaded her to take the part of Mazu.
Cheung downplayed her work. Speaking at the opening night ceremonies, she said, "I couldn't imagine what this would be like, I just kind of trusted Isaac. I thought, okay, this is not a movie movie, it's an art installation. I don't need to know what's the last scene, what's the next scene. It was very easy, we did it in an afternoon."
The most radiant of Hong Kong stars over the past three decades, Cheung insisted she has moved on from acting to working behind the camera. "I'm learning editing," she said excitedly. "More than the actual filmmaking itself, editing is where the decisions are made."
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