芮恩Ray.N

#Requiem: TheWakeKeeperOfTheGoldenEra

We belong to a generation raised in the afterglow of moving images, a generation shaped by a grand historical irony.

Our imagination was awakened and formed by the aesthetics of cinematic masters. We inherited the myths of cinema, learned how to dream through projected light, and devoted ourselves to an art form that once stood at the very center of collective culture.

Yet history played a cruel joke. By the time we arrived, the celebration was already nearing its end. We never truly lived through the golden age. What we inherited instead was a torch on the verge of extinction, the ruins of an aesthetic cathedral whose foundations had already begun to crumble. Movie theaters became retail stores. Film magazines disappeared. Video rental shops vanished almost entirely. Attention fragmented into endless streams of content, while the shared darkness of the cinema was gradually replaced by personalized feeds and algorithmic recommendations.

Growing up, we could only hear the echo of a civilization already fading; perhaps that is why the romanticism of our generation always carries an archaeological quality. It is precisely our generation, who loved cinema most passionately, believed in it most deeply, and dreamed of dedicating an entire lifetime to it, that has been forced to witness its decline; those who intended to marry cinema for life arrived just in time for the funeral. From fervent believers, we became defenders, caretakers, then wake keepers; lingering beside the coffin and stubbornly waiting for resurrection on the third day.

This performance asks:

What does it mean to remain faithful to a medium that appears to be dying?

What does it mean to keep vigil beside the body of a culture?

Are we filmmakers or merely the wake keepers of cinema?

“Requiem: The Wake Keeper of the Golden Era” is a public funeral ritual dedicated not to an individual, but to an era of collective dreaming. It mourns a time when cinema was not merely content, but a shared faith; when darkness gathered strangers together; when projected light still carried the promise of a future larger than ourselves. Whether that future is truly gone remains uncertain. For now, we remain beside the coffin, keeping watch.

Back in January this year, we shot a short film during one of the heaviset snowstorms New York has seen in recent years. It was my first time filming exterior snow scenes under such extreme weather conditions, and every minute was filled with uncertainty and loss of control. The blizzard swallowed roads whole; equipment and vehicles froze over; physical endurance and human judgment were constantly pushed to their limits. More than a production, it became a test of conviction and execution. At a time when image-making is becoming increasingly dependent on AI generation and highly controllable automated systems, we still insisted on dragging both our bodies and spirits into a real snowstorm——making a film in the oldest, clumsiest, and most dangerous way possible; and the theme and very act of the film became a metaphor for the cinema itself. To everyone who was willing to run into the snowstorm with me: what we shared went beyond collaboration, and became something closer to a bond forged through survival itself.

The film is titled Requiem. A man slowly drags a coffin across a snowfield. He builds his own coffin, lies inside it, buries clocks, burns handwritten traces…rehearsing his own death the way a director stages a film. Like an aging elephant leaving the herd in search of its own grave, he turns death into a ritual that can be framed, choreographed and controlled. If one sees life as a film, then being able to make one’s own director’s cut is itself a rare privilege. But as the journey stretches onward, a solitary wooden door suddenly appears in the wilderness, interrupting the ritual entirely. It feels like an intervention from outside the frame itself, causing what once seemed like a complete and controlled ceremony of death to gradually drift off course. In the end, the film remains suspended in an unfinished state: deconstructing logic, weakening finality, preserving irresolution…like a funeral abandoned halfway through.

I have always been fascinated by the idea of “time within the image”. Cinema propels time forward through movement, while photography traps time inside a moment incapable of further development. Between the two exists a tension that can never truly be reconciled. Requiem contains almost no conventional narrative; only a small series of repeated actions: dragging, waiting, lying down, walking. I wanted these gestures to become so slow they approached stillness itself, until movement gradually lost its narrative function. What the audience witnesses is no longer the progression of events, but the accumulation of time within the frame. The appearance of the door feels like a force from outside the system. It resembles both a deus ex machina and cinema itself, a medium that refuses to be fully buried. Death should imply an ending, yet images continuously allow things to return and persist. In that sense, the film ultimately becomes less about death than a letter written to cinema itself: about how images remain, how they disappear, and why they continue to stubbornly resist extinction.

Our film will have its technical screening on May 29th at 6pm EDT at Accent Sisters, New York, as part of “Stand At The Liminal Stage: Asian Artists 2026 Film BFA/MFA Screening”. We truly look forward to sharing this film with all of you.

[Credits]

Starring: Yongning (Ash) Mi

Writer/Director/DP/Editor/Colorist: Jui-En (Ray) Chang

Producer: Sylvie Chang

UPM: Yushi (Kuma) Xiong

1st AD: Yulong (Leo) Cheng

Production Designer: Jiazhen Luo

Art Director: Jingyi Zhang

1st AC: Jay Zhao

Gaffer: Qijing (Hulk) Wang

Key Grip: Cedric Tsai

Production Sound Mixer: Yushi (Kuma) Xiong

Poster Designer: Jui-En (Ray) Chang

Special Thanks to 8-Bit Rental

A Production of Nudecore Studio

Jui-En “Ray” Chang (b.1998, Taiwan)

Still-A-Live/Requiem, 2026

Framed inkjet print, Digital, B&W, 24x36in

Single-channel video, Digital, B&W, MOS, 1.77:1, 08:00, Projected on canvas, 30x48in

In this project, a solitary figure drags a coffin across an indeterminate landscape, enacting a gesture that suggests imminent burial yet does not progress toward a conclusion. Movement is extended and delayed until it resembles the durational presence of a photograph rather than cinematic flow. Through repetition, interruption, and near-suspension of action, time is thinned and destabilized. Positioned between photography and cinema, Still-A-Live/Requiem exposes their conflicting temporal logics: one isolates, the other unfolds. Here, motion loses its narrative function and becomes perceptual uncertainty, leaving an image that persists at the threshold between presence and disappearance.

Part of the “Evidence of Existence: 2026 ICP Recent Graduates Exhibition”, on view May 15–25 at International Center of Photography, New York.

©️JUI-EN RAY CHANG

被紐約的一場雨困在書店。

原本只是想借個屋檐，結果時間忽然變得寬裕起來，匆忙的腳步被迫暫停，閒逛也有了合理的藉口。沿著攝影書架慢慢翻，那些平時不會停留的書背，今天卻一冊冊被抽出來，就像在一眾攝影師前輩的目光里即興著散步。

雨還沒停，而若不是因這暫時的無處可去，我也不會有幸撿漏到幾乎已在書店絕跡的Sleeping by the Mississippi Signed Copy；沒能走進雨裡的紐約，卻順手走到了密西西比河畔。

我們聽著經濟上行期的回聲長大，被霓虹的余溫照亮；沒有真正經歷黃金時代，卻繼承了它的廢墟。像宴席散場後還坐在原地的賓客，靠著舊時代殘留的音樂、電影、雜誌排版、霓虹字體，學習如何繼續堅執於世紀末美學的信徒和衛道士。

因此，我們的浪漫總帶一點考古學意味。我們在褪色海報里尋找體溫，在老鏡頭的光暈里觀測靈魂，在膠片顆粒、CCD噪點、黑膠爆音、磁帶底噪里，試圖打撈「世界曾經向上」的證據。

What does it mean to make visible what often goes unseen?

I’m excited to share my work in Evidence of Existence: 2026 ICP Recent Graduates Exhibition, on view May 15–25 at ICP. This exhibition brings together artists from ICP’s One-Year Certificate Programs and Teen Academy Imagemakers, exploring how photography can give form to what is often overlooked or out of reach.

My project, “Still-A-Live / Requiem”, explores a moving image approaching stillness without resolving into narrative closure, alongside a mock contact sheet composed of 24 frames extracted from a single second of footage. A solitary figure drags a coffin across an indeterminate landscape, enacting a gesture that suggests burial yet resists progression. Movement is extended and delayed until it resembles the durational presence of a photograph rather than cinematic flow. Through repetition, interruption, and near-suspension of action, time is thinned and destabilized. Positioned between photography and cinema, the work exposes their conflicting temporal logics: one isolates, the other unfolds. Here, motion loses its narrative function and becomes perceptual uncertainty, leaving an image that persists at the threshold between presence and disappearance.

The exhibition is free with a suggested donation.

Plan your visit at the link in my bio.

#TwoSeasonsTwoStrangers #ShoMiyake

難得一見映後人潮散盡了還留在原地的導演，遂抓住三宅唱聊了許久；能感覺得到電影帶有的平和、誠懇和幽默，在導演本人身上突然具像化了。

#MasayoshiTakanaka

感謝這位身著鮮紅西裝的吉他手，在俏皮輕盈的指間搭建了一方尚未崩壞的幻想鄉，音符如海風包裹、節奏如浪花拍打，那裡在發生著永遠的盛放的夏。

在紐約聽龍應台緩緩撕開80年前、大洋彼岸的創傷記憶，很微妙難以言說的錯位感。

聽她談起戰爭與歷史，語氣平靜甚至克制。那種克制幾乎讓人忘記曾經的她筆下的《野火集》那種帶著灼燒感的文字，以及那種急於刺破沈默的衝動；二十年後寫成的《大江大海》，相比那種帶著憤怒的發聲，更多是嘗試理解的悲憫，將無數細小的個體經驗作為宏大的社會圖景的投影，目送動蕩年代巨浪拍打之下的一具具肉身與骸骨。帶有人文主義關懷的論述依舊，她表達對當今時代依賴政治權力彌合歷史仇恨與傷痕的悲觀，卻也帶著積極態度鼓勵所有人通過參與公共討論實現對具像的他者的關心、理解與共情，「在焦土之前盡所有努力」；作為曾經的以身入局者而反過來勸導人們對制度與權力的異化進行反思，同時提醒所有人警惕自我意識過剩與美化受害者心態，以至對不同於己的人盲目仇恨的狹隘。

我一邊在想，我們這一代人似乎難能見龍應台、燃不起那樣的野火了。憤怒等情緒不再稀缺，反而變得廉價、快速、可替代；接收與表達變得前所未有地便利簡易，以至無暇被再三斟酌沈澱咀嚼。表達被稀釋、被誤解，溝通即失真、即撕裂，我們越來越頻繁地說話，卻越來越難以聽懂彼此；甚而表達者與表達被圍觀、被標籤、被消費、被嘲諷、被迅速歸類與拋棄。比起區域局勢的緊張，我倒隱約覺得這個時代更本質的危險在於人理性的失重、共感的失能；我們浮躁、我們淺薄、我們傲慢、我們狹隘，我們大多對此也不自知。

我忍不住對龍老師當面提出了個不太禮貌的疑問，「如果身處現在這個時代的是二十出頭的妳，妳還會去寫《野火集》嗎？」「不要繼續越過悲觀的那條界線，要背對著懸崖往前走。」她撫了撫我的胳膊，沒有直接回答這個問題。

#AlbertWatson

“You can take a picture, but you can also make a picture. And there's a big difference.”

Huge pleasure getting the chance to meet and talk with the great Albert Watson at Leica Gallery!

#王以太

#TWICE

#setlife

於紐約又見蔣方舟，繼兩年前在洛杉磯。

在不到一個小時的對談中，蔣方舟老師展示出的思維和表達非常清晰有條——談到從寫作神童或知識分子的扮演到自身向內的挖掘，談到自由的犧牲與價值優先級，談到虛構世界面對現實世界的脆弱祛魅和再造賦魅，談到注意力和情緒在社交媒體上的失控與被引導，談到創作失聲與精神排泄。

#setlife

On the set of “Acceptance”, an indie short, mid-January 2026

#ManRay