Watching on a wonderful Sunday
100 Tonson Gallery presents “People On Sunday (2019)”, an exhibition by Thai artist Tulapop Saenjaroen which pays homage to a pioneering German silent film, Menschen Am Sonntag (1930), literally translated as People On Sunday.
The film was one of the first films that marketed itself as a film with no actors as it employed only amateur-actors/non-actors. It was shot only on Sundays in 1929 as these non-professional actors had to work on weekdays. What initiated Tulapop to revisit and reinterpret the film — from a different context, different era, different country and different working conditions, though — was the setting of the story which was simply about their day-off, life in free time.
His reproduced film attempts to provoke the question of representability of free time, of cognitive labour, of contemporary work ethic, and of the paradox between control and freedom via the frame of cinema. It roughly consists of three parts — the performance at the national park, behind the scene of the performance, and the post-production of the behind the scenes video in a rental domestic room.
All parts are accompanied with voiceovers — the voice of one of the female performers, the voice of the behind-the-scenes cameraman, and the voice of the freelancer who works with a computer at her home. The exhibition also features an electronic song remixing the voice recording outtakes of the actress and colouring images customised via an online form and coloured by the performers from the video.
The exhibition will wrap up on March 10 next year. 100 Tonson Gallery is on Phloenchit Road and opens Thursday to Sunday from 11am-7pm.