Different Lights Convey 明明

Different Lights Convey, 2022

Natural light, light, three-channel video, black plastic bags, magnets, tapes and mixed media

Content of Video:

1_Footage during World War II in Okinawa, 1945-4-1 ~ 1945-6-22

2_Footage during certain period in Hong Kong

3_A morning in Okinawa, 2022-11-21

Dimension variable

In Different Lights Convey, Tang Kwok-hin presents a three-channel video installation that examines light as a carrier of history, memory, and emotional truth. The work juxtaposes three distinct sources of footage:

• Historical footage from the Battle of Okinawa during World War II (April–June 1945)

• Documentary footage from the Hong Kong

• A quiet morning scene captured in Okinawa on November 21, 2022

Through this layering, Tang explores how different qualities of light — harsh, intense, and illuminating — shape and transmit collective trauma, resistance, and everyday existence. The work reflects on the contrasting nature of light: the destructive, explosive light of war and conflict versus the cold, distant light that preserves fragments of the past, and the soft morning light that quietly continues regardless of human turmoil.

The installation incorporates black plastic bags to block all the light from the outside, creating a physical environment that echoes the mediated nature of the footage. Accompanying the work is a reflection:

“A Box enfolds boxes. A room enfolds televisions. Sceneries are translated into moving images through light… The hot ones destroy everything, and the cold ones show a glimpse of the past against forgetting.”

Different Lights Convey is a meditative contemplation on how light records, reveals, and sometimes erases history. By placing the intense Hong Kong documentary footage alongside wartime destruction and serene present-day imagery, The artist is intended to draw connections between cycles of conflict, resilience, and the fragile persistence of memory across time and place.

A Box enfolds boxes. A room enfolds televisions.

Sceneries are translated into moving images through light.

Moving images are bright.

Housed light in machines or light generated from devices transform into other forms.

That who is worried that light without temperature may not be capable to wake people up. Those who are greedy for sleep will not be awaken.

The hot ones destroy everything, and the cold ones show a glimpse of the past against forgetting. 

That who is worried that light lack warmth eventually lose its personality. City wanderers always seek novelty and manipulation. 

Brightness and darkness. Seemingly obvious. 

The sound of daily affairs in the early morning gradually arise.

Moving images in the past fade into light again.

The sun still shines entering the room through gaps warming our skins.

Whispering in my mind wonders, and illustrates the passage of light at the present moment. 

盒子包裹盒子；房間包裹電視機。

景象透過光轉譯成影像。

影像是光的。

光被收納於機器內或自器具產生，轉化成另一些形式。

那誰生怕缺乏溫度的光無法喚醒人們，貪睡者一睡不起。

過於熾熱的摧毀一切；冷冰的展示過去掠影對抗忘記。

那誰生怕缺乏溫度的光終究掉失個性，都市遊人總四處獵奇並竄改。

日月日月。

清早的作業聲漸起。

過去的影像重新褪成光。

陽光依舊透過縫隙照進房間照暖肌膚。

心頭的絮語邊疑惑，邊書寫當下光的經過。