Audio-Visual Cut Association:Space Needs People
Wendy Wong, Weng Si
“Space needs people,” said Albert Iao Ian Chu,
founder and consultant of Audio-Visual Cut Association.
The space of Audio-Visual Cut has cultivated and united a lot of people from different related fields in video production throughout these years. It is a non-profit association established in 1999, currently located in a three-story building near Jardim de Luis de Camoes (白鴿巢公園).
“At the beginning it was owned by a famous local painter Kuok Woon, but unfortunately he passed away in 2003. At that time his wife asked me to make a video to commemorate him and decided to lease his former residence to people in the local cultural fields,” said Chu.
A theatre group Comuna de Pedra was also finding a place to settle down at that time, so Chu suggested they could share this building. Since then, this space has served as a sustainable platform for the local art and culture as Kuok’ wife wished.
Apparently Audio-Visual Cut is not a nicely decorated space, in which plasters on the walls peel off, different filming kits and props, books, and DVDs get stuck at everywhere.
“The atmosphere of this space is casual but the drawback is too casual, so it is quite disorganized,” Chu giggled and introduced the details of this space. The bedroom of Kuok now becomes the major area for holding activities such as film screenings on every Friday night.
“I enjoy watching films here. For me, this space is like home. Even though you go to watch a film alone here, you can share your feelings with the other audience casually after the screening.But you just can’t talk to a stranger like this in a cinema,” said Ian Leung Yi On, who has been a core member of Audio-Visual Cut since 2006.
“At first I did not have anything to deal with video production, but film has become important to me because I can learn a lot of video production techniques and rethink about my life through films,” said he, who is still impressed by the first night sitting there to watch a film by a Taiwanese director Edward Yang Dechang.
The building where Audio-Visual Cut located is actually an old residential house, which is built with bricks rather than steel and cement with tall ceilings. According to Chu and Leung, the structure of this space keeps the same but the partitions were not like this in the past.
“We’ve tried to transform this little area into a mini coffee stand and tuck shop before, so that people can get some refreshments while watching films,” said Leung trying to dig out some sundries at the pantry area,
In addition, sometimes film art is so niche that it isolates people from getting in touch with, especially in Macao. Audio-Visual Cut has also encountered such a problem, as they are lack of people to manage this space daily. Leung added, “Basically this space is abandoned during daytime since not everyone can spare time to stay here all day. So it looks as if this space is not open for public but actually we welcome all people.”
In fact, it is ideal for them to create a local film library for the public. They have planned to set up such things but most of the members are busy, so it takes time to arrange that. Therefore, this space is mainly a place for editing, storing props and watching films right now.
Building up a connection between space and people is always one of their concerns. Luckily, besides those people from the video production field, their neighbors are also aware of the existence of this space. Chu said, “Sometimes, the owner of the restaurant next to Audio-Visual Cut asks me to help him to get a role in a film!”
To make a space “alive”, it needs the involvement of people so as to create more chemistry. These people act as the media and the audience for Audio-Visual Cut. Though it is not a perfect local film base,the members of Audio-Visual Cut are trying to connect people with this space.
“Running this space is not my first priority, but as long as I’m not dead and still capable, I want to see how far we can go with the local young filmmakers,” said Chu smilingly.