Introduction




    完美是机器的特权，瑕疵是人类的证明。

    My work often unfolds through two distinct but interwoven modes: the reflective and the aesthetic. On one side, I am drawn to memory, the fading of time, and my own process of growing up. On the other, I gravitate toward bold aesthetics: symmetrical composition, glitch-based editing, rough colors, and cuts synchronized to music. These two stylistic poles may appear to contrast, but they are connected by a single principle: the pursuit of what I call iconic moments. Each project begins with such a moment—an image, a color, a movement, or a musical beat—that crystallizes the emotional core of the work. Around that moment, I design transitions that weave meaning through juxtaposition and resonance. I rarely know at the beginning what the final result will look like; instead, the project becomes a journey of exploration in which both planned structures and unforeseen accidents shape the outcome.
             


    The concepts that most deeply inform this process are not purely technical but philosophical. I find myself resonating with Henri Bergson’s theory of durée (duration), Gilles Deleuze’s idea of the time-image, existentialist perspectives on meaning, and the embodied aesthetics of rhythm. These frameworks help me understand why recording feels essential, why symmetry and rupture draw me in, and why music often becomes the spine of my editing. In what follows, I will focus first on the philosophy of memory and time, which defines the emotional core of works like Surveillance Project, before turning to symmetry, glitch, and rhythm in later sections.







Concept 1: Memory and the Philosophy of Time






        At the center of my reflective work lies the conviction that recording makes time meaningful. Surveillance Project (2024), a short experimental piece built from archival fragments, was born from loss: I had lost nearly six years of footage from my life. At first, this felt catastrophic, as though my past had been erased. Yet in assembling the fragments that remained, I discovered something else—that even when incomplete, the act of recording testifies that the vanished years mattered. As I wrote in my artist notes, “recording a life of vanity proves that the time that has passed was meaningful.” This paradox—where memory survives in absence as much as in presence—echoes Henri Bergson’s description of memory as durée: a continuous flow of past into present, not a series of discrete instants. For Bergson, “memory is not a faculty for storing up recollections in a drawer… it is the ever-growing progression of the past which gnaws into the future” (Bergson 171). My project similarly refuses to treat memory as fixed storage; instead, it reveals how even loss and distortion can create presence.




        This connects to Gilles Deleuze’s concept of the time-image, which he describes as a cinema where cuts and transitions reveal thought and temporality rather than simply advancing plot. In Surveillance Project, transitions—whether dissolves or juxtapositions—do not explain a narrative sequence but expose the gaps in memory itself. The audience senses not “what happened,” but “what it feels like to remember.” The result is that the image becomes less about showing events than about showing time passing, folding, and disappearing. In this sense, my work participates in a tradition of cinema where absence and fragment are as expressive as continuity—seen in Chris Marker’s Sans Soleil (1983), which similarly constructs memory from fragments of travel, recollection, and loss.




        Finally, this relationship to memory is existential as well as temporal. Albert Camus argued that the absurd lies in the tension between our desire for meaning and the indifference of time, but that humans can still “imagine Sisyphus happy” by affirming life in spite of its transience (Camus 123). My impulse to record—even knowing recordings can be lost—enacts this affirmation. The lost six years of footage do not invalidate my past; instead, their absence confirms my commitment to making memory meaningful, even if that meaning is constructed after the fact. Thus, Surveillance Project embodies not only Bergson’s durée and Deleuze’s time-image but also the existentialist conviction that meaning must be chosen and affirmed in the face of loss.




Concept 2: Symmetry and the Aesthetics of Perception






        If memory grounds one pole of my practice, the other is defined by aesthetics that are immediate, formal, and perceptually striking. I often gravitate toward symmetry, bold composition, and visual echoes that create what I call “aesthetic triggers.” In works like AImage (2023), composition often takes center stage: a carefully aligned frame or an abrupt match cut becomes the hinge around which the entire piece rotates. For me, these moments are not decorative but structural, anchoring the viewer’s perception and guiding their attention to the relationships between shots.




        The psychological roots of this tendency can be found in Gestalt theory, a school of thought which argued that humans perceive wholes before parts. As Max Wertheimer observed, “there are wholes, the behavior of which is not determined by that of their individual elements” (71). Symmetry is among the most powerful Gestalt principles: viewers instinctively seek balance and pattern, and a symmetrical frame therefore produces an immediate sense of order and clarity. In AImage, for example, symmetry is not static but generative—paired with rhythmic transitions, it becomes a way of establishing continuity between disparate fragments.




        Yet symmetry is also a tool for juxtaposition. A cut that aligns two frames visually but contrasts them narratively produces meaning in the gap. This is where my method of building from iconic moments becomes most evident. I begin with a striking frame, then design transitions that either reinforce or rupture its symmetry, creating a dialogue between order and disruption. As a result, the audience experiences not only the visual pleasure of balance but also the symbolic resonance of contrast. The image thus functions both perceptually and philosophically, reminding viewers that order itself gains significance only when it brushes against disorder.















Concept 3: Glitch and the Aesthetics of Error






        If symmetry embodies order in my work, glitch embodies its necessary counterpart: rupture. I often introduce glitch effects not as spontaneous accidents but as carefully observed opportunities—moments where two shots share an underlying similarity that can be amplified by distortion. In Loose Ends (2024), glitches emerge at points of transition, layering the emotional climax with sudden ruptures of texture and color. This culminates in the iconic moment at 3:17, when the beat switch aligns with a visual disjunction that both interrupts and intensifies the flow of the narrative. The glitch here is not an error to be erased but a medium through which meaning is generated.




        Theorist Rosa Menkman has argued that “the glitch is a fragile utopia: the promise of an alternative” (Glitch Studies Manifesto). By breaking the surface of the image, glitch reveals the underlying materiality of media itself, reminding the viewer that the screen is never neutral. Similarly, Paul Virilio has suggested that “to invent the ship is to invent the shipwreck” (82); every technology invents its own failure. In AImage, these ideas became literal when a memory card failed during shooting, forcing me to reconstruct the project in post-production. Rather than mourning the accident, I realized that this rupture mirrored the film’s very theme: embracing the unexpected forces that shape artistic outcomes.




        In this sense, glitch aesthetics allow me to transform accidents—whether technical failures or aesthetic disruptions—into moments of revelation. They remind me, and my audience, that error is not the opposite of creation but its hidden twin. Where symmetry creates balance, glitch produces excess; where memory evokes continuity, glitch interrupts it. Together, they embody the tension at the heart of my process: the search for iconic moments that resonate precisely because they balance order with rupture.




Works Cited






Bergson, Henri. Matter and Memory. Translated by Nancy Margaret Paul and W. Scott Palmer, Zone Books, 1991.

Camus, Albert. The Myth of Sisyphus. Translated by Justin O’Brien, Vintage International, 1991.

Chion, Michel. Audio-Vision: Sound on Screen. Translated by Claudia Gorbman, Columbia University Press, 1994.

Deleuze, Gilles. Cinema 2: The Time-Image. Translated by Hugh Tomlinson and Robert Galeta, University of Minnesota Press, 1989.

Eisenstein, Sergei. Film Form: Essays in Film Theory. Edited and translated by Jay Leyda, Harcourt, 1949.

Marker, Chris, director. Sans Soleil. Argos Films, 1983.

Menkman, Rosa. The Glitch Studies Manifesto. Institute of Network Cultures, 2011.

Virilio, Paul. The Original Accident. Polity, 2007.

Wertheimer, Max. Laws of Organization in Perceptual Forms. 1923.