Timekeepers explores the works of artists and filmmakers who manipulate our perception of time. With their rapid editing, rhythmic sequencing, dynamic crescendos, and staccato soundtracks, these six films evoke an accelerated sense of time through their energetic interplay of sound and image. Spanning the 1960s to the present, the programme reflects on Asian modernity, industrialisation, and the information overload of the twenty-first century.

Beginning with 16 mm presentations of Takahiko Iimura and Kim Kulim’s pioneering conceptual films, the programme travels through various moving-image formats. This includes Ellen Pau’s innovative use of VHS to collapse the boundaries between real and virtual spaces, as well as Cheng Chilai Howard’s digital postproduction techniques that create an architectural symphony. Taiki Sakpisit reassembles 1980s film clips into an emotionally affecting silent montage, while YOUNG-HAE CHANG HEAVY INDUSTRIES draws audiences into a high-octane experience of time’s intensification in the digital age.