Dragonfly Eyes takes roughly 10,000 hours of surveillance film and condenses it into 81 minutes of found footage to compile a stunning, uncensored reflection on privacy, violence and the limits of social commentary. Chinese artist Xu Bing’s directorial debut is both shocking and a spectacular sight to behold, weaving together a tapestry of real-life images into the fictional story of a young woman named Qing Ting (meaning “Dragonfly” in Mandarin), who is not played by an actress but rather crafted from the moving faces that appear on the surveillance footage.
As a dragonfly’s gaze is splintered into a kaleidoscope of images, so is our view as an audience. A audacious first feature, Xu Bing’s Dragonfly Eyes implores the audience to confront the duality of fiction and reality, ultimately begging the question of when, if ever, is it okay to look away?
Director Biography
Xu Bing is a Beijing based artist whose work has earned him numerous honors, including the Macarthur Fellowship. He served as the Vice President of the Central Academy of Fine Arts and his work spans several mediums, including printmaking and installation. Dragonfly Eyes is his directorial debut.