Liang Yujue

"Green soup " is a nickname some scientist gives to a water body when algal blooms occur. The soup is green because it is filled with one of the most ancient microorganisms: cyanobacteria. Cyanobacteria are the origin of oxygen in the early earth’s atmosphere. During the oxygen building-up process, the majority of early anaerobic organisms became extinct as they were not able to handle the oxygen metabolism’s toxic by-products: reactive oxygen species (ROS). Scientists believe that the accumulation of ROS in cells might act as a selective pressure for the evolution of higher life.
ROS is not only harmful to anaerobic organisms, but also to us. The accumulation of ROS in cells is believed to be related with many human diseases, aging and death.

This video consists of two parts. One part describes the history of cyanobacteria consumption. The earliest record of cyanobacteria use was found in the Aztec Civilization, from more than three hundred years ago. Nowadays, certain species of cyanobacteria have become widely known as the superfood. In space research, cyanobacteria are also considered as a potential food supplement during space travel.
The other part of the video connects the ancient longevity ritual, face painting, and modern anti-aging cosmetics containing micro-algae.
With the development of science and technology, we have entered what is called the Anthropocene by geologists. But we are still afraid of death, meanwhile, more obsessed with pursuing vigor and life.

"During the World War II，I had no home, no family. Some people offer to buy me as their substitute for military service of Kuomintang.
In the battlefield, I hid in the bunkers in the most of the daytime and shot to the sky from time to time. I spend every second in hiding myself to get alive. At night, I seize every chance to run away. There were several times I actually made it. I continuously re-replacing others as a soldier every time I got back. Since I have been a soldier already for six times. I never shot anyone, nor got shot.
Until the end of the war, not even any gunshot wound can be found on me physically."
                                                                                                                        - A story from my grandfather

The nocturnal bottleneck was used as a scientific hypothesis describing placental mammals, which was proposed by Gordon Lynn Walls in 1942. These species could survive only by avoiding daytime activity during times in which dinosaurs were the dominant taxon, it was only after the extinction of the dinosaurs that mammals started exploring the daylight. In 2018, a new study by Kaitlyn Gaynor from University of Berkeley published in Science found that mammals are becoming more nocturnal in response to human activity, and we are creating a more nocturnal natural world.
This video demonstrates a human fictional evolution in Chronobiology that humans possess night vision just as mammals- to see in the dark fairly well, and a lawyer was found seeking for wolves in the forest at night. The image of the lawyer comes from the famous French jurist Bartholomew Chassenée in the 14th and 15th centuries. In 1510, Bartholomew Chassenée successfully defended the mice that had been brought to court by local farmers in Autun.
This world is brimming with things that humans considered to be at their mercy. In the meanwhile however a natural desire to seek balance and harmony with ecology interiorized in mankind from the beginning of creation. This short film offers a night entry into the nocturnal natural ecological landscape composed of harmonious and psychedelic philosopher's river, elegant and mysterious nocturnal animals and the fictional and absurd new forms of humanity, pulsating in time.