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Ella Raidel

Play Life Series

Documentaire | hdv | couleur | 11:0 | Autriche | 2011

Ella Raidel’s video Play Life Serie exposes its own methods right from the start. We see film shoots and film sites where Chinese soap operas are produced. As the camera pans to film teams and cameramen, the fictional content of the rehearsed scenes is interrupted and revealed as the process of making-of. At the same time, through editing, Raidel replays particular movements, handholds, and gestures of the characters, thus intensifying their serial level. The repetitions make clear the extent to which sword fights, wine, love, and revolt are part of a medially represented repertoire of gestures. Ella Raidel’s work deals ironically with the Chinese soap opera as fake-factory of collective desires, which in the interplay of fiction and making-of, forces its way through reality, scrutinizing it—as site of image making and image controlling.

Ella Raidel, born 1970 in Austria, studied at Art University Linz, lives and works in Taipei. She is currently Post-doc Researcher at Academia Sinica in Taipei/Taiwan. Ella Raidel is artist, filmmaker, presents her works internationally at Video- and Filmfestivals as well as exhibitions, such as Transmediale 2013 (Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin), Floating Islands (Shanghai Biennale 2012/13 Kinmen/Taiwan), Asian Triennale Manchester, Discovering the Other (National Palace Museum Taipei), Based Upon: True Stories (Witte de Wit Rotterdam) Filmfestivals: CPH:DOX, Dok Leipzig, International Filmfestival Rotterdam, Crossing Europe, Duisburger Filmwoche, etc.