Introduction:

​

The video installation Unsubtitling presents a dialogue between three people who speak four different languages. The languages include Japanese, Mandarin-Chinese, English, and Bunun (a Taiwanese indigenous language).  These all strongly correlate with Taiwan’s modern history. Due to Taiwan’s historical background, some families do not speak a common language.

Unsubtitling is a conversation between three bilingual participants. However, there is no mutual language that all three participants understand. There will always be one person left out of the conversation. Thus, it is impossible to obtain a mutual understanding between all three of the people, but the conversation continues otherwise, without a core.

The three participants talk about topics such as divided generations and languages, the political climate surrounding the issue, endangered languages, aboriginal culture, and many more. However, no topic was discussed in depth due to the language setting. 

​

Unsubtitling does not have subtitles. Therefore, no audience will be able to fully understand the whole context of the conversation. However, it will force the viewer to imagine/create the full story through the language one associates with.