Optical De-dramatization Engine (O.D.E.) applied in 15-hour cycles to Ma-Xu Weibang's ‘Yeban gesheng’ (Song at Midnight), 19372015

The video presents an algorithmic, generative, and software-driven dataset of images - a dataset that dynamically runs in 15-hour cycles. The sequenced, glitched imagery derives from the brilliant and melodramatic Shanghai version of "Phantom of the Opera" made in 1937. My software guarantees that the video generates non-repeating compositional patterns. For this video recording, the launching time of my original software intentionally occurs at, and is displayed as, 23:55 (Sept. 20, 2015), just prior to midnight. At precisely midnight, the video records the event of a triggered algorithm. The algorithm causes the start of the central song of "Yeban gesheng" - the politically enigmatic and emotionally intense "Song at Midnight".