Zhou Tao

After Reality

After Reality is a video by Zhou Tao, which was born out of his residency with the Kadist Foundation in Paris in 2012-13. Prior to arriving at the residency, the artist had begun filming in Guangzhou, China, capturing footage of the lush vegetation from the semi-wild and semi-urbanized zones of Guangzhou’s urban fringe and a group of Dragon Boat rowers training in the adjacent river. As he arrived in Paris, he was confronted with the radical difference with which Europeans arrange and organize environments: the highly manicured cityscapes of Paris in stark contrast with the overgrown abundance of Guangzhou. Using the notion of “geometrical editing” Zhou Tao then worked to incorporate images shot in Paris to his previous editing, focusing on the idea of continuity in between spaces as means to create a third, imaginary space through film. Adding another layer of complexity, Zhou Tao also subtly appears performing in the footage among the scenes of rowers and farmers going by—either walking at a slightly slower pace behind them or assuming difficult stances amid the luxuriant vegetation. The result is a film that is untethered to space and confronts us to a kind of unhistorical time where background and stage, viewer and actor, fact and story line, documentation and representation are all superimposed interchanged. creating an alchemy that transforms ordinary surroundings into a theater of mystery and wonder, which are rare to find.