2013年5月3日 星期五

News Release: Discovering‘ Pioneering Values’ in WRO Media Art Biennale 2013 ; Taiwanese Curator Reinterprets the Value of the Progress with ‘The Apocalyptic Sensibility’


News Release (2013.04.29)


Discovering‘ Pioneering Values’ in WRO Media Art Biennale 2013

Taiwanese Curator Reinterprets the Value of the Progress with ‘The Apocalyptic Sensibility’

        

         To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the birth of electronic art, the 15th WRO Media Art Biennale takes ‘Pioneering Values’ as the focal theme. From May 8 till May 11 of 2013, the opening programs will launch in the eighteen exhibition venues all over Wroclaw. WRO 2013 will have the debut of the New Media Art from Taiwan. Among 1500 works in the open call, the Taiwanese artists Lin Pey-Chwen’s ‘ Eve Clone’ and Wu Chi-Tsung’s ‘Crystal City’ are selected with the curatorial concept ‘ The Apocalyptic Sensibility’ of the Taiwanese curator Yunnia Yang.


The Apocalyptic Sensibility: The New Media Art  from Taiwan    


     The project ‘The Apocalyptic Sensibility: The New Media Art  from Taiwan’ in WRO 2013, curated by Yunnia Yang, will be held in the Ballestrem Palace in Wroclaw from May 9 till June 16, 2013. Without highlighting the progress of technology, the Taiwanese curator thinks that the advanced development of technologies in 21st century is unprecedentedly avant-garde and innovative. In this evolution, the life of human beings has been improved on a large scale, from solving problems to stimulating imagination, to breaking the boundaries, to challenging the unknown. In the human civilization, the pioneers express their foresighted visions and courage to make their dreams come true. As the Greek mythology of Prometheus, the cultural hero dares to offend the Gods to steal fire for human beings and to turn the darkness into the brightness.  The role of a pioneer has been always regarded as a pilot who leads ahead, but he might be a critical thinker. Under the excess obsession and the advanced development of technologies, could the human beings employ technologies rationally, as well as create the harmonious relations between technology, nature and humanity?

The 2012 Apocalypse of Mayans has gained attentions from the global audience. The theme on the Apocalypse has existed in our popular culture, such as films, novels and comics. It seems that the apocalyptic imagination doesn’t give so much impact to the normal life of human beings and doesn’t cause any overall panic. In the end of the 19th century, the apocalyptic imagination fused love, sex and death together, giving birth to the decadent aesthetics of ‘ Art Nouveau’. It is the point of no return for the contemporaries to enjoy the best love in the life and to indulge in the fin-de-siecle romanticism even if they were confronting the death. Owing to the globalization, mediation world, and technologization, the apocalyptic imagination in the 21st century is influenced by the simultaneous real-time transmission of the disasters; the reality replaces the imagination. The apocalyptic condition is namely the current situation of the human beings. The apocalyptic imagination might be regarded as an alternative for the survival issue: imagining the human beings to retreat to the utopia land we desire or escape into the virtual world. Walter Benjamin presumed that the postmodern culture is the most apocalyptic representation in the human civilization, regarding the progress as a storm. He predicted that the secret worries behind the advanced development of technologies might be the negligence and even negation of the human sensibility. The Apocalyptic complex is probably a turning point for the destiny of human beings. The attitude to the future is neither absolutely certain, nor positively on the bright side. The ambiguous and enigmatic uncertainty is exactly the perception the contemporaries are experiencing right now. The crisis might be a chance! As the progress is not the only option for human beings to take in the human civilization, ‘Pioneering Values’ doesn't mean to play the leading role in the age. The sensibility and the critical thinking that the Apocalyptic complex has caused will change the new generations’ values to the progress.

 In the human civilization, the pioneers express their foresighted visions and courage to make their dreams come true. As the Greek mythology of Prometheus, the cultural hero dares to offend the Gods to steal fire for human beings and to turn the darkness into the brightness. In 21st century, the advanced development of technologies is unprecedentedly avant-garde and innovative. In this evolution, the life of human beings has been improved on a large scale, from solving problems to stimulating imagination, to breaking the boundaries, to challenging the unknown. The role of a pioneer has been always regarded as a pilot who leads ahead, but he might be a critical thinker. Under the excess obsession and the advanced development of technologies, could the human beings employ technologies rationally, as well as create the harmonious relations between technology, nature and humanity?

The 2012 Apocalypse of Mayans has gained attentions from the global audience. The theme on the Apocalypse has existed in our popular culture, such as films, novels and comics. It seems that the apocalyptic imagination doesn’t give so much impact to the normal life of human beings and doesn’t cause any overall panic. In the end of the 19th century, the apocalyptic imagination fused love, sex and death together, giving birth to the decadent aesthetics of ‘ Art Nouveau’. It is the point of no return for the contemporaries to enjoy the best love in the life and to indulge in the fin-de-siecle romanticism even if they were confronting the death. Owing to the globalization, mediation world, and technologization, the apocalyptic imagination in the 21st century is influenced by the simultaneous real-time transmission of the disasters; the reality replaces the imagination. The apocalyptic condition is namely the current situation of the human beings. The apocalyptic imagination might be regarded as an alternative for the survival issue: imagining the human beings to retreat to the utopia land we desire or escape into the virtual world. Walter Benjamin presumed that the postmodern culture is the most apocalyptic representation in the human civilization, regarding the progress as a storm. He predicted that the secret worries behind the advanced development of technologies might be the negligence and even negation of the human sensibility. The Apocalyptic complex is probably a turning point for the destiny of human beings. The attitude to the future is neither absolutely certain, nor positively on the bright side. The ambiguous and enigmatic uncertainty is exactly the perception the contemporaries are experiencing right now. The crisis might be a chance! As the progress is not the only option for human beings to take in the human civilization, ‘Pioneering Values’ doesn't mean to play the leading role in the age. The sensibility and the critical thinking that the Apocalyptic complex has caused will change the new generations’ values to the progress

Eve Clone - the  Incarnation of Desire  

      Eve Clone’s identity and role is defined by presenting the woman depicted in The Book of Revelation ("The woman whom you saw is the great city, which reigns over the kings of the earth."). Through the use of large projections and computer interactive system, an image of an authoritative woman is shown in a self-rotating view of Eve Clone. The image is cloned and repeated in a delaying format. Displayed at the bottom of the image are chapters of scripts from The Book of Revelations of the Bible in five different language in Chinese, English, Greek, Latin, and Hebrew, Arabic to represent the powerful nation in human history. Through this, cloning is criticized for the disasters that it will bring upon the world, just like the image of the woman depicted in the Book of Revelations. Furthermore, to emphasize the vitality of Eve Clone, computer generated numbers are displayed as an indicator of her vital value. When viewers enter the site of the installation, the vital numbers will start to accumulate. As the audience leaves the installation site, the numbers stop and the Eve Clone’s skin color begins to fade, signifying that artificial life cannot be self-sustaining. The holy hymn played in the background represents the eroticization of Eve Clone’s artificial holiness.



Crystal City, Where Our Spirit Accommodates

        The impulse of human progress origins from improving the current living condition, with expectation to have more links and communications with the world. The 21st-century information technology not only satisfies our ubiquitous connections and sharing, but also makes us obsessive with this virtual reality that the technology simulate.  The projection of human desire reflects the inner reality that human beings believe. Wu Chi-Tsung takes his work ‘Crystal City ’as a metaphor that the contemporary life is manipulated by the medium and technology. It seems so illusional, but so real at the same time. As a viewer perceives well such a world this kind of contemporary life turns into, he will find there is a lifelike  rhythm as a crystallization. Surprisingly, such a complicate concept is realized in a creative and critical approach of representation. The light source rotates along with the kinetic installation; its projection turns the objects into a transparent spiritual shelter. In fact, these objects are plastic boxes that we waste too much in the daily life. The artist regains their value by means of his creativity. With the conscious of environmental protection, ‘Crystal City ’ has introspection about the development of human materialistic civilization, as well as the mental therapy of human obsession with the technology. In comparison with the majority of new media artworks that show virtuosity of the advanced technology , Wu Chi-Tsung traces back to the origin of an image- Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, a metaphor that human beings misbelieves the illusion of an image. However, it reflects that the image is the real quality of mental world. 


The Apocalyptic Sensibility: The New Media Art from Taiwan


Curator : Yunnia Yang

Artists & Works : Lin Pey Chwen The Revelation of Eve Clone】、【The Portraits of Eve Clone; Wu Chi-Tsung  Crystal City 002


Opening Ceremony: 10 pm , May 9, 2013 (Thursday)

Exhibition Period:  May 9 – June 16, 2013

Exhibition: Ballestem Palace, Wroclaw, Poland

Organizer: WRO Art Center(Poland), VS performer’s body(Taiwan), Lin Peychwen Digital ArtLab. (Taiwan)

Sponsor: Ministry of Culture, R.O.C.(Taiwan)/Ministry of Foreign Affairs, R.O.C. (Taiwan)/Department of Cultural Affairs, Taipei City Government(Taiwan)/ Department of Cultural Affairs, New Taipei City Government(Taiwan)


Curator: Yunnia Yang(楊衍畇)


Expert in Surrealism. Fascinating with Salvador Dali’s ‘Paranoiac Criticism’, Yunnia Yang has an insight into the experimental spirit and unlimited creativity of interdisciplinary arts. She has received the S-An Aesthetics Award with the thesis “Irrational Narration. Myth Making: On the ‘ Angelus myth’ created by Salvador Dalí with the concept ‘ Paranoiac-Criticism’” in 2010. In the same year, she has delivered the academic paper ‘Uncovering Alice’s Cabin of Curiosities: on the Sadomasochism of Infantile Imagination in the film ‘Něco z Alenky’ of Jan Švankmajer, in the 6th International Symposium of Surrealism in United Kingdom.

For the concern of the impact of media obsession in our lives, Yunnia has curated the experimental performance ‘Manic Depression: The Shadow-Image-Sound Complex’ in the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) in Taipei in 2011.


Yunnia Yang has received the Master degree in Art History from St. Petersburg State University in Russia in 1997, and Doctor degree in Arts from National Taiwan Normal University in 2009. During this period, she managed all kinds of exhibitions, performances, and art events for the institutions of arts, literature and culture in Taiwan. Since 2011, she has launched the long-term curatorial research on ‘ The Postmodern Condition in the contemporary art of Russia and Eastern Europe’ in cooperation with the following art institutions: National Center for Contemporary Arts in Moscow(Russia), the Executive Committee of ‘ Night of Museum in St. Petersburg’(Russia), Agency for Contemporary Art (ACAX) of Ludwig Museum in Budapest(Hungary), Opekta Ateliers Köln(Germany), Contemporary Art Foundation(Taiwan), and National Culture and Arts Foundation(Taiwan). This project will be realized in form of thematic exhibitions and monographs.


Artist : Lin, Pey Chwen(林珮淳)


Lin, Pey Chwen received her doctorate degree of Creative Arts from University of Wollongong in Australia. She is the founded member and chairman of Taiwan Woman’s Art Association and Space II. She was invited to exhibit her works in many national and international art galleries and museums such as National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Taipei Fine Arts Museum, MOCA Taipei, Kaohsiung Museum of Arts, Queens Museum of Art in USA, and several important Biennials and festivals such as Media Art Biennale in Poland, Taipei Art Biennial, Taiwan Biennial, Exit and VIA Art Festival in France, 404 Festival of Art and Technology in Argentina,  Many of her works were recorded in art books including History of Contemporary Taiwan Woman Artists, Installation Art in Taiwan, Taiwan Contemporary Art, Taiwan Modern Art Series, The History and Development of Digital Art, Art of Taiwan, Digital Aesthetics, Art Island - An Archive of Taiwan Contemporary Artists, High School Art Textbook, Yearbook of Chinese Contemporary Art and Asian Who’s Who in Singapore, and “n.paradoxa” which is one of the most important international feminist art Journals in the world. She is the art professor and the director of Digital Art Lab in National Taiwan University of Arts.



Artist: Wu Chi-Tsung(吳季璁)


Wu Chi-Tsung was born in Taipei, Taiwan (1981), and currently lives and works in Taipei, Taiwan. Wu received his Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Taipei National University of the Arts in 2004. His work, in which he devotes great attention to the methods used in producing and interpreting images, spans across different media, including photography, video, and installation art. In 2003, he received the top prize of the Taipei Arts Award, and in 2006 was short-listed for the “Artes Mundi” prize. He has had several solo exhibitions, including at IT Park (Taipei, 2004 and 2009) and Chi-Wen Gallery (Taipei, 2009), and his work has been included in group exhibitions, such as THE ELEGANCE OF SILENCE (Mori Museum, Tokyo, 2005), Artes Mundi (National Museum of Cardiff, United Kingdom, 2006), OUR FUTURE, THE GUY AND MYRIAM ULLENS FOUNDATION COLLECTION (Ullens Center for Contemporary Art (UCCA), Beijing, 2008), and TAIWAN CALLING - THE PHANTOM OF LIBERTY / ELUSIVE ISLAND (Műcsarnok - Kunsthalle, Budapest, 2010).

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