Documentary Filmmaker Lin Jianxiang: Exploiting the multifaceted directions of interlocking objects 

On July 2007 the Tao people of Orchid Island for the first time rowed a man powered balangay, the ipanga na 1001, across the Pacific through the Kuroshiro current to Taiwan. The driving force behind this project was documentary film director Lin Jianxiang and the Tao aborigine Guo Jianping. Their story began in 2001 when they were commissioned by the National Museum of Natural Science in Taichung to create a balangay for display. Upon completion of the vessel, Guo Jianping’s father probed ‘Now that it’s finished why not sail it?’; after all, what is a boat built for if not for sailing. But could ‘our’ boat be rowed in Taiwan? The issues relating to traditional and modern culture helped create the ‘Keep Rowing’ plan.

Throughout the entire process of first setting out to build a balangay right through to its completion and setting out to sea, the Tao people strictly adhere to established custom and traditional convention. With the course set this time for Taiwan, the completion of the boat crossed cultural taboos and pushing through clan ties, namesakes and fishing nets, six brave aborigines gathered to take part in the venture. The balangay was hence christened ‘ipanga na’, meaning ‘Crossing over and navigation’. Throughout this journey of interchange from the traditional to the modern, Lin Jianxiang was at once instigator, leader and documenter. Entering into his 20th year of documentary filmmaking, Lin Jianxiang has covered subjects as diverse as Taiwanese aborigines to veterans, the environment, social campaigns, local culture, underprivileged groups and local customs etc through which he attempts to expose the links between peoples and promote inter-cultural exchange.

In the past decade, in order to fully prepare for his documentaries, Lin Jianxiang has become an expert of information retrieval. In this Digital Age, the Internet has naturally become an important search tool. Lin Jianxiang believes what is most special about the internet is that could be viewed as an ever expanding universe of almost limitless pages; when searching for a certain phrase, both relevant and irrelevant results will be thrown up – through what kind of unexpected results can arouse wild ‘links’ and bridges? Through casting off the shackles of established practice, Lin Jianxiang enjoys firing both his own inspiration and that of others through imagination.

Having interviewed countless others, Lin Jianxiang enquires; ‘Have you thought about where your life is?’ It is his belief that the comings and goings of a person’s life can be found recorded in their photographs and letters; nowadays it can also be found in one’s emails, computer hard-drive and on Facebook. In the film ‘Tron: Legacy’ there is a CD-ROM on to which is recorded the protagonist’s every memory, piece of action and bit of information. From this Lin Jianxiang reasons that if one’s information could indeed be digitalised, it would be recorded in the shape of an onion like sphere; within this sphere the core would turn in line with set requirements and each file property could be redefined according to different settings. In 2012 we are probably quite removed from such a thing, however perhaps if we changed the mode of search and altered the temporal quadrants, we may be able to crossover and the resultant layers of content would make up our life.

Lin Jianxiang emphasises ‘we can have multiple dimensions and interpretative perspectives, it simply depends on how one categorises and sets store on significance.’ To use the example of digitalising books, Lin Jianxiang is pretty certain of the importance of these digital images. He donated over 4000 hours of video material created in a multidimensional studio during his formative years to the video database established by Public Television Service. Not only this, he also uploaded them to the Taiwan Social and Humanities Video Archive in order to share changes in this area since the lifting of martial law. The culture and cultural thinking he has learnt through shooting his documentaries helps remind him of how at times presentation of a collection in digitalised form, along with scientific classification, can sometimes remove the artefact from its original cultural content. For example the Tao balangay can be literature, language, botany and religion. This is because the balangay has a song, and song is language, it is also literature. The creation of a balangay requires knowledge of ecology, and upon its completion the inauguration ceremony contains religion. This boat encompasses all; classification is only basic systemisation; what must be reflected upon is how the links between it all unfurl through use without letting the boundaries of science constrain the significance of an item. As Lin Jianxiang states, ‘All of life has become part of culture or civilisation because it has been looked upon, examined and reflected upon. Digitalisation successes aside, it also needs to be reflected upon and examined.’

How to allow digitalisation to jump this hurdle and explore the infinite reciprocal links binding the universe could perhaps render digitalisation as an important crux for the next generation.