ABSTRACT
The complex subject of language identity and revitalization in Taiwan, and later, along with Hawai‘i, calls for a new social imaginary, and therefore, a new form of media arts practice that contributes to the dynamic processes of decolonization efforts. This chapter on editing focuses on the Tongues of Heaven collaborative documentary, a key component of the i-doc web application and activist art platform, Root Tongue: Sharing Stories of Language Identity and Revival (root-tongue.com). Written in the essayistic format, this chapter reveals how editing an experimental documentary about language, identity, and culture involves complex negotiations around issues of decolonization, recognition, essentialism, marginalization, inclusion, and exclusion, theoretically and in practice. Using concepts of “intellectual dynamization” in montage editing, Dziga Vertov’s “hunting for montage fragments,” Trinh T. Minh-ha’s elaboration on Vertov’s intervals, and Gilles Deleuze’s time image, the author theorizes that through the interval, as it exists between each shot and within each shot, a mutual space is created for pause, reflection, and sometimes a disruption of the imagination, leading further to an awareness of the interval existing within as viewers and spectators.
