Xu Bing: Dragonfly Eyes

With »Dragonfly Eyes« the ZKM presents the surveillance melodrama of the Chinese artist Xu Bing. The artist, known for his experimental calligraphy and bookbinding art, is one of the most important representatives of contemporary Chinese art.

For his first feature film, Xu Bing edited footage from surveillance cameras into a fictional story. He chose from 11,000 hours of footage to tell the story of a young woman named Qing Ting (»Dragonfly«) who, after a time as a nun in a Buddhist temple, returns to the secular world to take a job on a highly mechanized dairy farm. Ke Fan, a technician who works on the farm, falls in love with her. To please her, he breaks the law. After his release from prison, Ke Fan searches again for Qing Ting without success – until he discovers her having a new identity on the Internet.
The result is a provocative story that is as mundane, surreal and strange as reality itself. Xu Bing's melodrama tells of voyeurism, of the longing for intimacy and of the secret terror of the public.

After the film screening, Xu Bing discusses with Peter Weibel and responds to the audience's questions.