Ella Raidel

The soap opera is not just a popular pastime, but also a reflection of its sociopolitical space, that in turn can be arrested by its visual image and language as the public belief. Viewers can project their identifications over whatever the protagonists portray. Soap operas can be realized as the social consensus where the collective desire can be repetitively transformed as a political allegory.
During her stay in Beijing, 2011, Ella Raidel came to examine what is lurked behind the scene of Chinese soap operas. The results are several video sequences that witness the making-of and mis-en–scene for different productions. Through re-editing the making-of of these dramas, visual evidence in repetition she resample a new narrative that insists in the trope of Chinese image-making.
Play Life Series is not only about the making-of these soap operas, but also about the commentary of the making-of for the very social space that realizes these visual narratives, that in turn become the mirror image of its people. While it can be revealed by the hyperbolic acting where the long last crying unfolded in the slow-motion, or by the highly choreographed fighting techniques swirling in the air, the Play Life series characterizes these soaps as the public gaze that persists in the everyday reality of China.