Author: cl4690

 
Lockdown Ties is a project that documents neighbors’ collect glimpses into residents’ lives under lockdown. It is a web-based video diary project and creative documentation of one neighborhood’s experience during the covid19 pandemic in Shanghai in 2022. Although face-to-face interaction is prohibited, residents develop new ties that exist uniquely during the Covid-19. Until this time of the writing, impressions shared usually zoom in on the mishaps and the suffering. However, besides the sadness, individuals also shared more happiness concerning their neighbors on the social platform. The lock-down forces residents to enhance the interaction between neighbors since living in groups becomes a new way to survive. By presenting a collection of videos from my neighbors, this project aims not only to document how people’s lives have changed because of the lock-down but also to present the enhanced group interaction inside a community.

My community in Pudong Laoshan Road, with 400 people arranged in 4 buildings is not allowed to leave the building, and the compound of food comes from both group purchases and government support. This website is a re-creation of the actual space, people are absent but viewers can encounter their traces when they explore the webpage. The recorded videos will be displayed on the website once the viewers get closer to the layout object. I constructed separate homes based on residents’ room numbers. The project consists of a website, constructed as a simulation of the housing complex with the residents’ individual rooms, and numerous audiovisual materials recorded by the inhabitants themselves, responding to my prompts about lockdown routines. The display of furniture is based on the content of the record. Viewers are put into the role of a fellow resident to walk around, seeing the actual lock-down lives and hearing each resident narrating their stories. When the character gets close to the furniture, videos will automatically be displayed. The lock-down atmosphere is also demonstrated through the medical workers displayed at the border.

Within this space, online ‘rooms’ reflect the residents’ actual spaces, while the outside environment suggests an ongoing lockdown – outside the border of the flats, medical workers in hazmat suits can be seen. The visitors can explore the complex, approaching different furniture items in the rooms to watch the video diaries. By inviting residents to narrate and film their stories, this project serves as a documentary to store memories during the special period. Compared with the impression of modern, high-tech, and busy streets, this project reveals another living style that Shanghai people are creative and energetic even being lock-down at home. The culture of Shanghai is also revealed in the project as viewers can listen to the Shanghai language. This project also intends to direct people’s focus to the enhancement of community brought by the Covid-19. Though documentaries traditionally utilize filmmaking, web-based documentaries expand the definition. The ‘subjects’ of the documentary can participate in various ways, recording the video material themselves. This project serves as a reflection on the boundary between public and private, intimate and isolated.