Fire Cock
2017 · 3m · USA
Directed by Andrew Thomas Huang
Genres: documentary, experimental
Tones: contemplative, mythic, provocative
A video memoir in which the artist's grandmother and relatives play mahjong while a photogrammetric scan of the warrior deity Guan Yu materializes behind them, combining emoji sequences and the track 'XI BA LAN' to produce a cacophony addressing political anxiety and the call for resistance.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
Huang's Tribeca and Sundance Institute profile makes this Guan Yu piece more than mere video art; it is a politically charged family document that deploys the full range of his photogrammetric toolkit in service of lived cultural anxiety.
Photogrammetric Guan Yu over Cultural Revolution survivors playing mahjong, with emoji typography. The collision is genuinely audacious and Andrew Thomas Huang knows what he's doing.
Andrew Thomas Huang photogrammetry-scans the warrior deity Guan Yu looming behind his Cultural Revolution-survivor grandmother and aunts playing mahjong, intercut with emoji typography and an Eternal Dragonz track. Sacred-algorithmic collapse in three minutes — singular.