What does light do to a body? Restless Glows is an experimental video essay that traces the entanglements of light, the human body, and contemporary technoscientific imaginaries. Filmed across Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Shanghai, Bolzano, and Zürich, the work weaves together live-action footage, CGI sequences, motion-capture studies, and AI-generated imagery into a layered visual inquiry.

Moving between laser acupuncture, consumer light technologies, choreographed urban illuminations, and large-scale luminous infrastructures, the film follows the circulation of light-based practices across therapeutic, aesthetic, and speculative domains. Digital avatars and fragments of on-screen text reflect on vision, translucency, bodily porosity, and the affective agency of light.

Shifting between intimate bodily encounters and expansive metropolitan nightscapes, Restless Glows approaches contemporary lighting regimes as ambivalent systems: infrastructures of care and optimization that simultaneously operate as subtle apparatuses of control, desire, and attention capture. Oscillating between documentary trace and speculative animation, the film invites viewers to consider how luminous environments recalibrate perception, dependency, and aspiration within increasingly technologized urban ecologies.

Credits
Concept & Editing: Alan Bogana
Camera: Alan Bogana, Di Fang
Production Assistance: Patrick Nedel
Butoh Performer: Flavia Ghisalberti
Motion Capture: Artanim, Geneva
Indoor Skydiving Performers (Switzerland): Benjamin Guex, Olivier Longchamp
Indoor Skydiving Facility (Switzerland): RealFly, Sion
Indoor Skydiving Performers (China): Veronica Hu, Yvonne Hu
Indoor Skydiving Facility (China): iFLY, Shenzhen
Soundtrack: Cassapanca
Sound Editing & Mixing: Adrien Kessler
Color Grading: Gaïth Zehri
CGI & AI Animations: Alan Bogana, Giacomo Bompan (goodbread.co)
Chinese Translation: Ling Gu

Filmed at Shanghai, Shenzhen, Hong Kong, the Advanced Biometrics Research Center (CUHK–Shenzhen), Museo Archeologico dell’Alto Adige (Bolzano), and QiHigh (Zurich).

With special thanks to Emmanuelle Antille, Marlène Arevalo, Caecilia Charbonnier, Po-Hao Chi, Doctor Chen (TCM), Kyle Chung, Shicheng Dai, Mathieu Dafflon, Eran Diler, Di Fang, Laurence Favre, Melitta Franceschini, Cathy Fu, Flavia Ghisalberti, Ling Gu, Pablo Hurtado, Lauren Huret, the Hu family, Miao Jiang, Valérie Juillard, Vytas Jankauskas, Sonia Kacem, Tess Kienberger, Kalen Lee, Tan Lijie, Hunter Longe, Iris Long, Lucy Lu, Patrick Nedel, Kingsley Ng, Michele Nicodemo, SenSend, Wenchi Su, Elisabeth Vallazza, Valentina Vetturi, Zhicheng Xiao, Yang Yeung, Ziqing Ye, Lok Wong, Dapeng Zhang (David Zhang), and Wenxin Zhang.

And to 1a space, the Advanced Biometrics Research Center (CUHK–Shenzhen), Artanim, iFLY Shenzhen, Museo Archeologico dell’Alto Adige, CAN Neuchâtel, Pro Helvetia Shanghai, QiHigh, RealFly Sion, and Videotage.

This project was generously supported by Pro Helvetia – Swiss Arts Council, the Mind the Gap digital arts fund, and by the Fonds cantonal d’art contemporain (FCAC), Geneva.