Civilisation is a sewer. The work follows virtual currency and digital junk to examine how production and consumption in virtual worlds interact with material reality. The garbage that decorates video games, the excrement of a city simulation, crypto mining farms, and geopolitical speeches are folded into the same system of value and waste.
The virtual is not outside the real; it is a potential that is repeatedly realized in the actual. As objects vanish from game worlds and currencies claim decentralization while depending on centralized infrastructures, the film tracks an alternative reality generated from the pressure placed on the space of reality itself.
Process notes
Battlefield 4 came out in 2013 with its plot set in 2020, in a mainland China thrown into an armed coup — a storyline that also got the game banned in China. By the time I actually opened it, at the end of 2020, the pandemic, the sanctions on China and the interminable US election were all happening at once, and the game’s fictional coup had come to rest almost flush against the world outside the window. I cracked the game and recycled its 3D models, above all the garbage models manufactured with such precision only to “decorate” a sense of the real: the corpses of commodities, produced over and over inside a virtual world.
I let these game ruins, the imagery of crypto-currency and the language of actual power run through one circulation. The film’s geopolitical voice comes from the unannounced White House video Trump released on 2 December 2020; cut together with mountains of digital garbage and a city-simulation volcano filled with residents’ excrement, the virtual and the real run on a single turnover of value and waste, pouring into each other inside my experience of that moment.
Festivals / screenings
- 2024, Screening 2 - Competition, Falling Tree Film Festival, London, United Kingdom
- 2024, Kalakari Film Festival, Dewas, India
- 2024, Vienna Shorts, Vienna, Austria — Reselected
- 2023, Grand OFF Festival, Warsaw, Poland
- 2023, Digerati Emergent Media Festival, Denver, United States of America — 1st place award in the category RESONANT DWELLINGS
- 2023, Ars Electronica Animation Festival 2022 on Tour: Electronic Theatre, Locust Projects, Miami, United States of America
- 2023, Ars Electronica Animation Festival 2022 on Tour: Electronic Theatre, Microwave International New Media Arts Festival, ZtoryTeller Gallery, Hong Kong
- 2023, Ars Electronica Animation Festival 2022 on Tour: Electronic Theatre, Patchlab Digital Art Festival 2023 SPACE/S, Krakow, Poland
- 2023, Ars Electronica Animation Festival 2022 on Tour: Electronic Theatre, Studio International Theater Festival, Targu Mures, Romania
- 2023, KUANDU Film Festival, Taipei, Taiwan
- 2023, 50th Athens International Film + Video Festival, Athens, United States of America
- 2023, International Animated Film Festival Animocje, Bydgoszcz, Poland
- 2022, World Film Festival of Bangkok, Bangkok, Thailand
- 2022, CutOut Fest International Animation and Digital Art Festival, Querétaro, Mexico — Special Mention for Experimental Short Film
- 2022, The 4th Topu International Animation Week, Dongbuzhou, China
- 2022, Le Festival – Instants Vidéo numériques et poétiques, Marseille, France
- 2022, South Taiwan Film Festival, Tainan, Taiwan
- 2022, LAGOS INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL OF ANIMATION, LIFANIMA, Lagos, Nigeria
- 2022, Festival du Nouveau Cinéma de Montréal, Montréal, Canada
- 2022, Vancouver International Film Festival, Vancouver, Canada
- 2022, OVER THE REAL Festival Internazionale di Videoarte, Lucca, Italy
- 2022, Pacific Meridian International Film Festival of Asian Pacific Countries, Vladivostok, Russia
- 2022, BLON Animation and Games Festival, Klaipėda, Lithuania
- 2022, Ars Electronica, Linz, Austria
- 2022, Seoul International ALT Cinema & Media Festival, Seoul, South Korea
- 2022, Festival international du film d’animation d’Annecy, Annecy, France
- 2022, Vienna Shorts, Vienna, Austria
- 2022, Internationale Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen, Oberhausen, Germany
- 2022, Videoformes 2022, Clermont-Ferrand, France — Prix EX-ÆQUO DU DÉPARTEMENT
- 2022, Cinéma du réel, Paris, France
- 2021, Beijing International Short Film Festival, Beijing, China
Exhibitions
- 2026, Demain, demain, La Station, Nice, France
- 2026, Instance Dungeons and Sights / 無限副本與瞄準器, National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Taichung, Taiwan (CNTW) — March 28 - June 28, 2026
- 2025, Electrified Kids - The 8th Intermedia Art Festival, TANK Shanghai, Shanghai, China
- 2023, Powerhouse Late x Club 4A: Future No Future, 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, Sydney, Australia
- 2022, Order Copied: Change the Reference Frame, Magician Space, Beijing, China
- 2022, Views at the Edge, End of the Screen, Gallery Weekend Beijing, Beijing, China
- 2022, VIDEOFORMES @ imagespassages, Imagespassages, Annecy, France
Links / references
- Annecy official archive: Very, Very, Tremendously Official Annecy 2022 selection archive record.
- BISFF official selection: Very, Very, Tremendously Official Beijing International Short Film Festival selection page for the film.
- Cinéma du réel archive: Very, Very, Tremendously Cinéma du réel archive entry with film metadata, synopsis and credits.
- Prix Ars Electronica 2022: Very, Very, Tremendously Prix Ars Electronica 2022 Computer Animation Honorary Mention page.
- VIDEOFORMES 2022 awards: Very, Very, Tremendously VIDEOFORMES 2022 awards page listing the ex aequo departmental prize.
- South Taiwan Film Festival: Very, Very, Tremendously Official South Taiwan Film Festival page for the Best Experimental Film Award nominees programme.
- Vienna Shorts: Very, Very, Tremendously Vienna Shorts public film page for the film's reselected festival record.
- Animocje 2023: International Competition II Animocje 2023 competition programme page listing the film.
- Denver Digerati 2023: Resonant Dwellings Denver Digerati festival page listing the film in the Resonant Dwellings programme.
- OVER THE REAL: VIDEOFORMES selection OVER THE REAL video selections page listing the film in the VIDEOFORMES selection.
- Magician Space: Order Copied: Changing the Reference Frame Magician Space exhibition page with the work listed in the exhibition documentation.
- 4A Centre: Powerhouse Late x Club 4A: Future No Future 4A Centre event page listing the film in the Half Symbolic Films screening programme.
- TANK Shanghai: Electrified Kids - The 8th Intermedia Art Festival Official TANK Shanghai page for the 2025 Electrified Kids exhibition framework.
- National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts: Instance Dungeons and Sights / 無限副本與瞄準器 Official NTMoFA event listing for the 2026 exhibition, with Liu Guangli listed among the participating artists.
- NTMoFA audio guide: Very, Very, Tremendously / 非常，非常，非常地 NTMoFA online audio guide entry pairing Liu Guangli's Tutorial - How to Shoot in 3D with Very, Very, Tremendously.
- BCAF New Voice: Liu Guangli interview BCAF interview in which Liu Guangli discusses the research behind the film.
- BnF notice bibliographique: Very, very, tremendously Bibliothèque nationale de France catalogue record for the film.
- Letterboxd public film record: Very, Very, Tremendously Public film database record that keeps the title, year and director searchable.