"Dis-Oriented: Propaganda and Critique"

'DIS-ORIENTED': HONG + CHEN + LIGON +
Our program exploits the contradictions between and within various and varying official histories of China, Japan, and the US. Featured in this mortal combat between propaganda, political fantasy, and critique, is the world premiere of "731: Two Versions of Hell", a 27 min. master-stroke of (re)deconstruction, crafted by Goldie awardee James Hong and collaborator Yin-Ju Chen. This ingenious ideological puzzle takes as its subject the infamous Japanese military lab (731) that housed experiments using Chinese prisoners as live guinea pigs. This inquiry into the construction of History serves as healthy response to the blatantly racist and nationalistic 'war information' films (16mm) that open the show ("Why We Fight", "My Japan", "Our Job in Japan").
A similar service is performed by JD Ligon’s "Ha Ha Ha America", a provocative skewering of assumptions about China vs. US global supremacy and pride. $5.