布鲁诺·拉图尔曾经提出“人类的知识何以可能”并以《我们从未现代过》讨论科学与社会的不可分割与对称性。他的一个重要民族志实践是把现代科学实验室作为田野研究的空间，并使用田野对象的日常交流语言（包括专业科学术语和科层制报告等）来揭示现代科学的建构性和社会性。
本片把田野对象从科学实验室挪用到当代艺术空间，但延续同样的方法论来观察当代社会的视觉表征，并试图实验一种影像书写的方法，即以影像本身来书写影像传播的现代性和非现代性。
具体做法如下：
1.作者本人长期关注当代艺术生产，一是作为研究员的身份参与到艺术机构组织和策展过程中，一是与机构、艺术家和策展人有多年的深度交流。对影像的生产传播过程比较熟悉。
2.在2023年疫情结束后，作者作为高校老师，和策展人一起，多次带研究生班和本科班对第七届广州三年展进行现场观察、访谈和撰写观察报告。（广州三年展以影像和当代艺术为主，是国际性展览品牌和广东的文化名片，对当代艺术影像的生产、传播和消费具有表征和指针功能。）
3.在此之后，作者约同社会学和人类学的老师学生再次一同观展讨论，动员学生搜集网络资料和自媒体拍摄内容，进行圆桌讨论。就当代艺术生产、艺术与社会、自媒体与视觉性等讨论。
4.带着相关理解，作者约同摄像三人，分别使用便携拍摄设备，在广州三年展的结束日，各自按自己的理解拍摄长镜头，最后选取其中一位的记录进行剪辑。
Bruno Latour once raised the question of “how human knowledge is possible” and discussed the inseparability and symmetry of science and society in his seminal work We Have Never Been Modern. One of his foundational ethnographic practices was to treat the modern scientific laboratory as a field site, utilizing the everyday language of his subjects (including technical scientific terminology and bureaucratic reports) to unveil the constructedness and sociality of modern science.
This film transposes the site of fieldwork from the scientific laboratory to the contemporary art space, yet it extends the same methodology to observe the visual representations of contemporary society. Furthermore, it attempts to experiment with a method of “cinematic writing”—that is, using the medium of moving images itself to write about the modernity and non-modernity of image dissemination.
The specific approach is as follows:
- Long-standing Engagement with Art Production: The author has a long-standing focus on contemporary art production, having participated in the organizational and curatorial processes of art institutions as a researcher, while maintaining years of deep engagement with institutions, artists, and curators. Consequently, the author is highly familiar with the production and dissemination processes of moving images.
- On-site Fieldwork and Institutional Observation: In 2023, following the end of the pandemic, the author, in the capacity of a university professor, collaborated with curators to lead multiple graduate and undergraduate classes on site visits to the 7th Guangzhou Triennial to conduct direct observations, interviews, and write fieldwork reports. (Focusing primarily on moving images and contemporary art, the Guangzhou Triennial is an international exhibition brand and a cultural hallmark of Guangdong, serving a representative and indexical function for the production, dissemination, and consumption of contemporary art images.)
- Cross-disciplinary Roundtable Discussions: Subsequently, the author invited faculty and students from sociology and anthropology departments to revisit the exhibition and engage in joint discussions. Students were mobilized to gather online data and self-media (user-generated) content to conduct roundtable discussions. These sessions focused on topics such as contemporary art production, art and society, and self-media and visuality.
- Cinematic Experimentation via Long Takes: Armed with these accumulated insights, the author invited three videographers to the closing day of the Guangzhou Triennial. Equipped with portable filming gear, each videographer captured long takes based on their individual interpretations of the space. Ultimately, the footage recorded by one of the videographers was selected for the final edit.