Hing Tsang was trained as a documentarist at the National Film and Television School. He worked for several years as a technician in the television and film industry before completing a PhD at the University of Lincoln. He is also the author of “Semiotics and Documentary Film” (2013) De Gruyter Mouton and has written numerous articles about documentary, fiction and experimental practice. He remains active as a practitioner and his work has been seen in festivals in the UK Europe and Latin America.
Teaching
Introduction Part 2
Documentary
Drama
Final Project
Dissertation (contributor)
Development and Pre-Production (contributor)
Research interests
Documentary practice, American pragmatism, sign theory, bio-semiotics, visual anthropology, Experimental Film, Asian film.
Publications
'Drawing, Diagrammatic Experimentation and Deliberative Agency in Rithy Panh's Papier ne peut pas Envelopper la Braise', Southern Semiotic Review, 9, 2018, pp. 31-46.
‘The poetics of (social) mise-en-scène and transcendence in Li Shaohong’s Stolen Life’, Asian Cinema, 29, 2, 2018, pp.243–60.
‘Rethinking Ability and Disability in the Work of Van der Keuken’, in C. Brylla and H. Hughes (eds.), Documentary and Disability (London: Palgrave Macmillan 2017), pp.115-128.
‘Documentary and ecosemiotics: Frames and faces in the work of Johan van der Keuken’, Sign System Studies, 4, 1-2, 2016, pp.186-208.
‘Jon Jost's The Bed you Sleep In: Art, Truth and Subversion’, Jump Cut 57, Fall 2016.
‘Semeiotic Memory, Mass Murder and Agonism in Rithy Panh’s S21: The Khmer Rouge Killing Machine’, Southern Semiotic Review, (Issue 4), 2014.
Semiotics and Documentary: The Living Sign in the Cinema. (Boston: Berlin: de Gruyter Mouton 2013).
'Christians, Jews, and Moors in the work of Van der Keuken', Interventions, 14, 3, 2012, pp. 410-428.
'Emotion, documentary, and Van der Keuken's Face Value', Studies in Documentary Film, 5, 1, 2011, pp.17-30.
H.Tsang, 'Mobile Topography in the work of Van der Keuken', in Francois Penz and Andong Lu (eds.) Urban Cinematics: Understanding Urban Phenomena through the Moving Image 2 (University of Chicago Press. 2011), pp. 137 - 156.
H.Tsang. 'Rural America', in John Berra (ed.) Directory of World Cinema: American Independent (London: Intellect 2010). pp. 240 -243.
'The Subject and the indexicality of the photograph' (with B.Winston), Semiotica, 17, 1-4, 2009, pp. 453-469.
Selected conference papers
‘Reflexive Tropes and the Poetics of Self in Li Shao-hongs Stolen Life’ Poetics of Asian Cinema conference, Lancaster University, July 2017.
‘Camera and Body Puppetry’ NECS Sense and Sensibilities Conference, Paris June 2017.
"Pointed or Pointless? Recalibrating the Index" Keynote Speech at the Photographers' Gallery London, June 2017.
‘Kampuchean voice and identity in Rithy Panh’s the Missing Image: voice, identity and selfhood’ MeCCSA Practice Network Symposium, Wales, June 2015.
‘Tragedy, Semiosis and Community in two films by Jon Jost.’ Research Seminar, University of Essex, March 2015.
‘Voice and agency in the work of Rithy Panh.’ (presented at the Voice and Documentary symposium, University of Surrey, September 2014).
‘Semiosis, Self, Camera, and Nature.’ Film Philosophy Conference, University of Glasgow, July 2014.
‘Reframing: Non-Human Umwelt and Human Animal Lebenswelt in the Work of van der Keuken.’ Framing Nature: Signs, Stories, and Ecologies of Meaning conference, University of Tartu, May 2014.
Film Screenings (selected)
Seaworld (18 mins) 2015. Slow Cinema Symposium 2, July 2016, Feel the Reel International Film Festival, October 2016, FEDAXV Festival Diseno AudioVIsual, October 2016, Seemor Film Festival, October 2016, (winner of Best Artist's Film). Espacio Enter, December 2016, Bucharest Short Cut Fest, December 2016. Ayahuasca (8mins) 2015 Avant Edge Film Festival CEFF Chicago, December 2016. Espacio Enter, December 2016.
