top of page
Screen Shot 2021-11-18 at 8.08_edited.jpg

RUOYUN CHEN

RE: BLUE

Official Music Video

Songwriter, Singer, Director, Actor: Ruoyun Chen
This song is dedicated to my beloved musicians.

MAY, SNOW

Songwriter, Singer, Director, DP, Editor: Ruoyun Chen
This song is dedicated to the snow in Ithaca, May 2020.

Another winter 's melting away,

leaving all the branches, and creeks behind

The snowflakes that April forgot to put away

awake today


Too winding to find the way home

too deep to escape the dream drown

too loud the pouring rain to hear the words from you

Just let them sleep,

let them fade


The darkest, the brightest words,

is your answer that in silence forever.

The ultimate, the warmest flower

If it blooms again,

don’t let it go, don’t let it fall


Departure in moonlight

from home till the edge of the land

The wind and snow that set off with you

Where will they land tomorrow?


The winter has yet to go

Mute all the yesterday’s murmurs low

If May will bring the snow

Will you recognize me with your soul?

珊瑚 Eve, Eve
14:56

珊瑚 Eve, Eve

"Eve, Eve" is an anti-SciFi short film. In setting of the future, every family owns a live-in AI maid. They are all designed to have female appearance. Each humanoid wears a collar serving as their command receptor as well as the energy source. Once they take off their collar, they will soon power off. Reversing the path of human migration and evolution, “Eve, Eve” tells a story about two humanoid maids get out of their host home, leave the city, lurk into the suburbs, to get back to the ocean, where life was originated from. What could be the abilities that humans may never teach AI? --Those abilities that we have already forgotten. I was trying to answer this question in "Eve, Eve" by letting our creations recall those abilities: the abilities to aestheticize nature, to look directly into each other and escape from the first person narratives, to unload the technology to experience the lightness, to be part of the nature and in the end, to be part of each other. --These for me are the ultimate humanity. In the story, no entity with collar could cross the boundary between the land and the ocean. To get back to the ocean, the AI maids have to take off their collar. The scene of them helping each other to take off the collar, I include the sound transiting from rocket launch, to army marching, to chanting the Sutras, to the first recording sound of human voice, each symbolizes technology, war, religion – the creation of human. Also, this scene symbolizes two AI maids giving birth to each other, where the title "Eve, Eve" comes from. "珊瑚", the Chinese name of the film, means "coral", a creature that often confuses people: is coral dead or alive? is coral animal or plant? --while corals live in the ocean, quietly. "Eve, Eve" tries to explore the alternative forms of using frames with the particular experiment with split screen. We expect to observe new cinematic language emerging from the interaction of split screen. Along with the plot, the sound evolves from electronic sound to human voice and finally to the sound of ocean waves. Parallel, the lighting of the film starts with urban artificial light, goes through the darkness, and ends up with natural light. "Eve, Eve" is from a first time female filmmaker (director, writer and producer), with all Asian crews. The director is a PhD candidate majoring in System Engineering. The film has won the best composer in Berlin International Art Film Festival and the best student short in San Francisco Indie Short Festival. "Eve, Eve" has also been selected in Berlin Short Film Festival 2022, Independent Shorts Awards, and was the quarter-finalist of Vancouver Independent Film Festival.
Visual.jpg

People's Republic of Letters

Six Chinese poets, born in the 1990s and raised as global citizens during China's era of relative openness, now witness their homeland's swift retreat, forging a "Republic of Letters" in diaspora across the globe. Through poetry, they construct a borderland transcending languages and geographies, reexamining their roots while navigating the complex interplay of longing and belonging.

bottom of page