The Inhumans

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Wing Shya and Simon Birch
Directed, filmed and produced: Wing Shya Editing by Jennifer Russell
Fight Choreography: Hao Yibo
Soundtrack: Gary Gunn
6-channel video, 2016

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Filling an installation of six large screens are images of 300 men, all workers in Beijing, fighting endlessly inside a cavernous industrial space. This space, or hall, is contained within a former factory, now abandoned, in an old industrial building on the outskirts of Beijing. There is no indication of who these men really are or what they are fighting for: they are at once both allies and enemies, enacting a seemingly inescapable, endless human loop. This is our fight, and the ordeal is to find the key to its encoding. The title of this work was inspired by the Marvel Comics book The Inhumans, about a group of alien superheroes in an alien world – Earth. Without the glam factor of the Fantastic Four, they were often misunderstood by humans to be malevolent.