Multi-channel Video as Polyphonic Narrative: Time Fragments and Spatial Paths in Contemporary Moving Image

Abstract

This study focuses on Multi-channel Video within contemporary moving image practice, understanding the multi-channel format not as a mere multi-screen display but as a structural system defined by multi-track images that generate differential rhythms and a polyphonic relationship along the temporal axis. Employing a structural analysis that integrates narratology, spatial image studies, and memory studies, the paper examines three representative works—Wu Junyong’s Qian Yue, Li Ming’s Straight Line, Landscape, and Tong Yixin’s Poems in the Mount Lu Zoo—and categorises them into three distinct multi-channel paradigms: the Lyrical, the Itinerant, and the Mnemonic, which respectively correspond to emotional rhythm, path-based time (or movement time), and multiple historical temporalities. The research further demonstrates that these structural models not only establish distinct modes of viewing—such as fluid drifting, path reconstruction, and multi-vocal decoding—but also reveal three corresponding artistic subjectivities: the Poet, the Traveller (or Peripatetic), and the Historiographer (or Chronicler). Ultimately, the study posits that “Multi-channel” should be understood as a crucial critical concept in contemporary moving image studies for reshaping temporal perception and narrative mechanisms.