{"title":"Towards a Techno-Hauntological Aesthetic: Immiscible Time and the Spiritual Imagination in <i>Bodyless</i> (Shishenji, 2019) by Huang Hsin-Chien.","authors":"Gabriel Remy-Handfield","doi":"10.1515/jcfs-2024-0003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jcfs-2024-0003","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This article discusses and explores acclaimed new media artist Huang Hsin-Chien's virtual reality (VR) experience <i>Bodyless</i> (Shishenji, 2019). In this film, through the process of the body illusion or the body replacement program, a component specific to VR, viewers embody the soul of a political prisoner deceased during Taiwan's martial law era. <i>Bodyless</i> juxtaposes Taiwan's traditional spiritual traditions with references to the Ghost Festival () and includes a dystopic vision of the future that appears towards the end of the film. This article establishes, through a close reading of several key sequences of the film, the emergence of a techno-hauntological aesthetic. It creates a dialogue between Huang's dream-like imagery and various interpretation of Bliss Cua Lim's concepts of immiscible time and heterogeneous space. How does <i>Bodyless</i> visually enact, perform, and develop a techno-hauntological aesthetic? How does the artist explore philosophical concepts related to memory, time, and space by using VR?</p>","PeriodicalId":520365,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Chinese film studies","volume":"4 3","pages":"527-543"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-11-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11697356/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142934416","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}