Artists: Pila Rusjan and Nung-Hsin Hu

The circumstances which led to the formation of the experimental interactive video project by Pila Rusjan and Nung-Hsin Hu are linked to the ECVP collaborative project known as The Exquisite Corpse Video Project. This is an original cross-cultural collaboration of artists working in experimental video and is inspired by the surrealist method of the ‘cadavre exquis’. The surrealist method was based on the randomness of the story assembled by the words or phrases added by different collaborators, whereas with ESVP, each participant produces a video piece created in response to the last ten seconds of the video by the preceding artist. Ten participants of the ECPV project formed the TRAFFIC JAM #1 video group. The artists first met at the Casa das Caleiras residency in São Paulo in 2010. TRAFFIC JAM #2, in which Pila Rusjan and Nung-Hsin Hu made the creative connection, went on in Taipei, as part of the Treasure Hill Artist Village residency programme from January to March 2012. In the intense atmosphere of creative collaboration, the two artists conceived the collaborative Bedtime Stories project.

The project springs from their own experience of loneliness in a foreign country and at the same time discusses the paradoxical situation of increasing solitude in a world characterized by intense communication aided by modern technologies. The interactive book and bed make up the audio-visual installation that creates an intimate and pleasant atmosphere, where visitors could browse through the book and choose their bedtime story. The stories that were projected onto the bed were presented in different forms, blurring the line between reality and dreams.

International Centre of Graphic Arts, Ljubljana, Slovenia

20 April 2012 – 17 June 2012

Support: The Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia, Municipality of Ljubljana
Photos: Jaka Babnik. MGLC Archive.