Featuring the song “Ako Ay May Lobo,” I Had a Kite is an experimental video that leads viewers on a psychological journey. The lyrics of the song suggest that modern society requires us to choose between pursuing our passion and fulfilling our basic needs. Using kite-flying as a metaphor for following one’s dream, the video tells a solemn narrative about growth, desire, and loss.

“…Human eyes can only process a tiny fraction of the electromagnetic spectrum, leaving out infrared, ultraviolet, gamma, cosmic, radio, and radar waves. What we physically see is often not what we mentally perceive. Considering what we see on screens are masses of individual pixels that our brain processes into cohesive whole images, defining what it is that we exactly see is indeed a complex question to unpack. And with a possible future mediated not just by computer and smartphone screens but also AR glasses and VR headsets, how we see the world becomes paramount to understanding what we are seeing.

Helping to define how we see and what we see is a unique strength that artists bring to the table. Through their practice, artists share how they see the world, mediated by intensely personal, generationally cultural, and chosen communal experiences. The ability to picture the past, present, and future can help collapse the distance of space and time, allowing multiple perspectives to co-exist in an artwork…” — Kevin B. Chen