RANDOM ACCESS 乱码城市

Video
14′20″, Original: 14400×2160 (20:3), Preview: 3840×2160 (16:9)
2023

On the second day after the city’s central data center unexpectedly crashes and reboots, the server keeper meets the cloud system in a disordered digital world where they become a passenger and a woman who is a retired taxi driver. They drive through the city, get lost, and try to locate themselves. Meanwhile, they also recall the ocean that covered this continent hundreds of millions of years ago, with a shell fossil that can track ancient memories and a pulsar star that guides the direction in the depths of the universe, as if they’re traveling and entering fragments of memories stored in the Cloud, or a wider version of themselves. Finally, they reach the end of the road and find themselves in another memory of a stone beach that is going to sink under the water soon after the hydropower station dam is built. Gradually, they also recall each other’s forgotten memories, like they were not really strangers.

In computer, random access is one of the modes to read and write datum ( as in random access memory, RAM), by which any arbitrary address can be visited in equal time no matter where it is located. It also refers to how we process memory, especially in the time interwoven deeply with digital technology.

As a speculative hypothesis of the experience in the Cloud world, the film is, however, not a futuristic imagination. It’s set in real locations of the so-called Chinese data capital, Guiyang, a mountainous and cloudy city, where many big data infrastructures locate, including the first iCloud data center in Asia and the host of the FAST telescope. They have changed the lives of people who are living here thoroughly in the recent decade.

In this respect, the film is about changes, also about lost and found. While ranging time and space, from the past to the future, from underground to the universe, it attempts to examine what is under going in the background of current digital cities.

Commissioned by VH AWARD of Hyundai Motor Group

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Hongyan / Driver: Hongyan
Data Center Keeper / Passenger: HE Ning

Director: HE Zike
Art Director: Mao_glosoli

In collaboration with Cinevoyage
Producer: Woody WANG
Image: Mao_glosoli, Song WANG
Sound & Music: 31
Tech: Node_wss

Assistant Producers: ZHAN Mengling, Sherry HUANG
Props: Mel
Underwater Cinematographer: ZHOU Yuanjie
Animation: ZHANG Wenxin
VFX: HE Zike, CHEN Weidi
Equipment: Sony (China) Co., Ltd
Yunus LU, DAI Zuoyu

Guitar: HE Ning
Lu Sheng: ZHANG Tianlei

[Why do you choose me]
From Album: Devil’s Love 
Singer: HE Ning (Published in 1989)
Original: YANG Qinghuang(1988)

Special Thanks to
WANG Haiyang, Keli, LI Anyong, Iris LONG

影像
14′20″，原始：14400×2160（20：3）预览：3840×2160（16：9）
2023

城市的中央数据中心意外崩溃和重启后的第二天，服务器管理员在失序的数字世界中与云端系统相遇，他们化身为了一名乘客和一名退休的出租车司机鸿雁。他们开车穿过城市，在混乱的导航中迷失了方向，同时回忆起了几亿年前覆盖在这片大陆的海洋，一个可以追踪远古记忆的贝壳化石和一个在宇宙深处指引方向的脉冲星，就像他们的旅行进入了储存在云端的记忆片段，或者是一个更广阔版本的自我。最后，他们走到了路的尽头，发现自己身处在一个记忆中的石滩，而在水电站大坝建成后这里很快就会沉入水下。渐渐地，他们也想起了彼此被遗忘的记忆，好像他们并不是真正的陌生人。

随机存取（Random Access）是读取和写入数据的模式之一（随机存取存储器random access memory即计算机内存RAM的全称），通过这种模式可以在同等时间内访问任何任意的地址，无论它位于何处。它同时也可以指向我们如何处理记忆，尤其是在与数字技术深度交织的时代。

作为对云端世界体验的猜测性假设，这部影片却并不是一个未来主义的想象。它的背景设定在中国数据之都贵阳，一个多山多云的城市，这里有许多大数据基础设施，包括亚洲第一个iCloud数据中心和FAST望远镜的服务器。近十年来，它们彻底改变了生活在这里的人们的生活。

于是，这部影片关于变化，也关于失去与寻回。尽管跨越了广泛的时间和空间，从过去到未来，从地下到宇宙，它试图审视在当前的数字城市背景中正在发生的事情。

作品由现代汽车集团VH Award委任

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鸿雁/司机： 鸿雁
数据中心管理员/乘客：贺宁

导演/脚本：贺子珂
艺术总监：Mao_glosoli

与Cinevoyage合作
制片：王小武
图像：Mao_glosoli, 王嵩
声音和音乐: 31
技术：Node_wss

水下摄像师：周元杰
动画： 张文心
视觉特效： 贺子珂, 陈威迪
助理制片人：詹梦玲，黄馨瑶
道具：刘梁诗雨
设备： 索尼（中国）有限公司
卢玉, 代作宇

吉他：贺宁
芦笙：张天雷

插曲《你为什么选择我》
来自专辑：《魔鬼的爱情》
演唱：贺宁（发行于1989年）
原唱：杨庆煌(1988年)

特别感谢
汪海洋、可立、李安勇、龙星如