SIMON LIU: Shock Studies

22MAY2025 SHOCK STUDIES_a new expanded cinema performance by Simon Liu. Featuring an intricate network of analogue projection, handmade electronics, live sound, and reflective materials, the work examined the problematics of nostalgia, representations of prohibited spaces, and the boundaries of control within an increasingly automated world.

In this conversation, artist Tiffany Sia and filmmaker Simon Liu discuss Simon’s expanded cinema performance Let’s Talk, contextualizing it within the sociopolitical transformations in Hong Kong since 2019. Liu reflects on themes of estrangement, memory, and control, shaped by his inability to return to Hong Kong during the protests and pandemic. The work departs from direct political documentation, instead using abstraction and formal experimentation to convey affective dislocation.

Liu employs analog projectors, power strips, and custom electronics to construct precarious, gesture-driven audiovisual systems. These methods embrace failure and impr…