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...there is a very distinctive poetry to Ellen's camera. The pictures flow by with a cool, elegant musicality carrying with them an undertow of unexplained sadness. It may be the sadness of the outsider... -Eleanor Antin. The philosopher, John Searle, attempting to prove that artificial intelligence could appear intelligent but could never really recreate a human mind, wrote about a thought experiment called The Chinese Room, in his article, Minds, Brains and Programs. He needed a foreign language to prove his point and he chose Chinese. This video is about the viewer as traveler, inside but outside, embarrassed and ecstatic, locked in the Chinese room and trying to understand.