Bodyless is a surreal VR experience based on the director's childhood memory during the martial law period in Taiwan in the 1970s. In that era, human qualities were simplified and quantified with only few characteristics recognized and measured by the ruling class. This era has long passed, but the rise of digital technologies is following the same tendency. Governments started to use new technologies like digital surveillance, big data, and artificial intelligence as a means to monitor and control people. A powerful world leader uses tweets with fewer than 140 characters to define the direction of his country. Human beings are reduced to a few pixels on the screen and it is left to the military drone pilot to decide whether to kill them or not.

In Bodyless, the retrospective martial law and the ultramodern digital technologies are fused in a dark oppression that conflicts with retrospective life and beliefs. The audience experiences this VR journey through the eyes of an old man who was a political criminal under a secret government experiment. After his death, he becomes a ghost and descends into the underground world. In Taiwanese folk belief, the gates of hell open and ghosts can return to the world of living to visit their families during "Ghost Month"--the seventh month of the lunar calendar. The old man's ghost makes up his face and ascends to the surface world. Through his eyes, the folk culture forms a rich spiritual world interwoven with nature. However, a mechanical force starts to deteriorate the spiritual world and eventually reduces human forms and memory into simple geometrical shapes that can be easily processed by technologies.

Links: https://www.storynest.com/2_cv.php?lang=en, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SCaBCQslw0&t=1s

Director: Hsin-Chien Huang
Visual design: Hsin-Chien Huang
Screenwriter: Hsin-Chien Huang
Producer: Saiau-Yue Tsau
Administrative planning: IF Plus Co., Ltd.
Music: Giong Lim
Program: Hsin-Chien Huang, Wei-Chieh Chiu, Chun-Yen Yu
Project manager: Chung-Hsien Chen
3D art design: Hsin-Chien Huang, Fig creative Co., Ltd (Hua-Lun Wu)
Motion capture: Axis 3D Technology, Inc. (Chin-Tang Lai)
Action actor: Hsueh-Wei Lu
Voice actor: Peng-Ying Wu, I-Chen Huang
Special thanks: Bureau of Audiovisual and Music Industry Development, MOC

Hsin-Chien Huang (TW) is an artist who specializes in mixed media. Science, technology, new media, programming, and algorithms are tools he uses to bring the universe of his imagination to life. He collaborated with Laurie Anderson, and their VR work La Camera Insabbiata won the Best VR Experience Award at the 74th Venice Film Festival. His latest work Bodyless also won the Special Mention at 2019 Kaohsiung Film Festival. He is especially enthusiastic about virtual reality because it opens up a world of possibilities, free of any constraints.