Multi-channel Video Installation
Full Production
The audio follows a Chinese American woman whose broken radio prompts an unresolved conversation with her former partner. Her brief shift into her native language echoes the tension of navigating multiple identities. As the visuals shift, certain emotional truths remain steady beneath the surface. The work explores how stories emerge from fragments and how perception depends on position, attention, and the constant reordering of what is seen and heard.
Concept
The project explores how meaning is formed through fragments rather than through a continuous sequence. By using footage with no fixed identity, the installation focuses on how context, juxtaposition, and the viewer’s shifting position shape narrative experience. The imagery constantly rearranges itself, mirroring the instability of emotional memory and the way small changes in perspective can produce entirely different interpretations.
Sound operates as a parallel layer, introducing hesitation, language shifts, and open-ended tension that reflect the uncertainty within the images. These elements work together to emphasize that meaning is not stable but negotiated through attention and movement.
The title Everything Remains Itself points to the tension between constant visual change and the protagonist’s emotional arc, which shifts yet never fully resolves. The installation invites viewers to consider how perception is shaped not only by what is visible but also by gaps, omissions, and everything that falls outside the frame.
Installation Form
The installation consists of a large-scale double-sided screen that exceeds the viewer’s field of vision. Each side displays different sets of generative imagery, making it impossible to grasp the entire work from a single position. The viewer must walk around the structure, creating a personal sequence of images.
This movement functions as an act of editing. The order in which images are encountered, combined with the viewer’s shifting perspective, produces a unique narrative each time. The installation is designed to encourage slow navigation, repeated viewing, and the awareness of how physical position shapes interpretation. This invites viewers to consider how perception is shaped not only by what is visible but also by gaps, omissions, and everything that falls outside the frame.
Visual System
The visuals are built from royalty-free stock footage chosen for its neutrality and adaptability. These clips are divided, layered, and recombined in real time through a TouchDesigner network. The system continuously randomizes image placement, timing, and subdivision patterns. No playback is repeated exactly, allowing each viewing to form new combinations and meanings.
This structure highlights how meaning emerges not from individual images but from the relationships between them. The instability is intentional; the work resists offering a single authoritative version of the story.
Audio Narrative
The sound component is a quietly unfolding narrative centered on a Chinese American woman whose broken radio leads to an emotionally unresolved exchange with her ex-partner. The dialogue focuses on tension, miscommunication, and the difficulty of maintaining connection across distance and time.
Her brief shift into her native language introduces a rupture that parallels the fractured image field. This linguistic transition signals dissonance, vulnerability, and the feeling of being between identities. The audio does not resolve the story but instead deepens the emotional space in which the visuals operate.
Technical Description
The installation is powered by a TouchDesigner system that manages real-time visual fragmentation and recomposition. The technical structure includes:
• Video input modules feeding multiple TOP chains
• Randomization parameters that dictate subdivision, layering, and transitions
• A timing system that ensures continuous but unpredictable motion
• Independent output paths for each side of the installation
• Integrated audio playback for the narrative component
• The system is designed to run continuously and non-repetitively, ensuring that the work remains generative rather than fixed.
Concept, Video, and Sound: Nova Park
Tools: TouchDesigner, Adobe Premiere, Envato
Year: 2025