The Lighting

THE LIGHTING aims to revisit issues of discrimination rooted in technological development and image production. Three professional Togolese photographers explore how to use instruments to compensate for insufficient exposure while shooting dark skin tones. A leading software engineer, developing facial recognition algorithms at Taiwan’s MediaTek, talks about how a newly-created camera algorithm is very popular on the African continent. 
Musquiqui Chihying uses Kodak’s echtachrome, a popular film material from the 1970s, to produce a kung fu movie in the style of an exploitation film that uses images of the famous Black martial art film star Jim Kelly, who starred in Bruce Lee’s movies in the 1970s. The work is also interlaced with an animated Bruce Lee as the narrator trained by facial motion capture technology and a speech recognition algorithm.

Musquiqui Chihying is a filmmaker and visual artist based in Taipei and Berlin. Specializing in the use of multimedia such as film and sound, he investigates the human condition and environmental system in the age of global capitalization and engages in the inquiry of and research on issues of subjectivity in contemporary social culture in the Global South. His works have been shown in several international institutions and film festivals, such as Art Sonje Center, Seoul, Centre Pompidou, Paris, International Film Festival Rotterdam, Taipei Biennial, and the 10th Shanghai Biennale. He is a member of the Taiwanese art group Fuxinghen Studio and the founder of the Research Lab of Image and Sound. His 3-channel-installation CAFÉ TOGO (co-director: Gregor Kaspar) was shown at the Forum Expanded exhibition in 2018.

Production Gregor Kasper, Patrick Atakpa Ayele-Yawou. Production company xizhuang culture & media GbR (Berlin, Germany). Director Musquiqui Chihying. Cinematography Lucas Bueno Maia, Olivier Yamajago. Editing Musquiqui Chihying. Music Ilya Selikhov. Sound design Sum Sum Shen. Sound Ixmucané Aguilar. Animation Mooni Perry. Production design Ling Yu He. Assistant directors Clémentine Kilikiba, Smith Kalao. Production managers Freedo Apedjago. Executive producers Gregor Kasper, Patrick Atakpa Ayele-Yawou. With Yugen Yah (Jim Kelly), Shu Fan Wang, Laïson Hilda Akoko, Apélété Kuami, Felix Agboka, Musquiqui Chihying, Kin Man Cheong (Kung Fu student), Chih Hao Chou (Kung Fu student), Ho Hsuan Feng (Kung Fu student), Shinyi Lin (Kung Fu student), Han Tang (Kung Fu student), Hanwen Zhang (Kung Fu student), Xiaopeng Zhou (Kung Fu student). 

Films

2018: Café Togo (with Gregor Kasper, 27 min., Forum Expanded 2018). 2019: The Guestbook (15 min.). 2020: The Sculpture (28 min.). 2021: The Lighting.