"TAIWAN VIDEA"
The Taiwanese Avant-garde Video Exhibition
Curator: Yunnia Yang
Curatorial Concept
Film art is an important
artistic expression in the contemporary visual culture. The charms of images
dominate the lifestyle and way of thinking of our new generation. Among the
Taiwanese contemporary arts, video art and experimental films enrich the visual
aesthetics and symbolic meanings with their own critical character, originality
and diversity. The internationally-awarded creative videos from Taiwan might
become a fleeting glimpse of beauty. The curatorial project ‘ Taiwan VIDEA’ is
to converge the creative energies and aesthetic features of film art, including
video art, performance art, experimental films and animations, digital
animations , animated MV, etc. The depth of these videos refer to many facets
of human beings’ living conditions: the social roles and survival relations of
the contemporaries (Tsui Kuang-Yu’s “The Shortcut to the Systematic Life:
Superficial Life”), the spatial imagination of an individual searching for the
freedom of his body and mind (Pu Shuai-Cheng’s “Secret Plane-Immense Floating”),
the danger and paranoia of overexpanding self-consciousness (Wu Tzu-An’s “Disease
of Manifestation”), a nutrition taken as a metonymy to criticize politicians
devouring people’s future dreams with empty promises (Wang Ding-Yeh’s “Beef-Wonderful
Promises”), the seriousness of the collective consciousness manipulated by the
contemporary media (Zhang Xu-Zhan’s “Ritual of Cathode Ray Tube”), the representation
of the poetic relations between human existence and urban enchantment by means
of a imagery poem (Wang Deng-Yu’s “Character Creator”); and showing humorously
the worries of a new generation of parents about raising children with an
oriental folk custom (Rau Kao’s “Pick a Future”), exploring subtle
transformations of the landscape of our
lives (Chang Huei Ming’s “Fragment Series”); singing the elegy of the gradual
disappearance of the Taiwanese OEM factories caused by the transformation of
Taiwanese economy (Chen I-Chun’s “Goodbye Little Factory”); with a new way of
seeing to explore aesthetic possibilities of representing the oriental
landscape painting (Wu Chi-Tsung’s “Landscape in the Mist”), with moving images
of paysage to activate a viewer’s body and its spatial perception (’Paysage’
created by Chiang Juan-Hau & Christian Rizzo); criticizing the desire law
of chasing after the ‘Progress’ deteriorating humanity(Huang Zan-Lun’s “Double”),
and analogizing the images of the New Year’s Eve fireworks and a candle as a
metaphor of the contradiction between the celebration of a country’s future and
the sacrifice of martyrs (Ho Wei-Ming’s “Over My Dead Country”). The 13 creative videos from Taiwan will
subvert the international audience’s impressions on the Taiwanese culture and
arts, crossing over the boundaries of fine arts and pop culture. The issues of ‘
Taiwan VIDEA’ are not only related to Taiwan itself, but also to the
contemporary problems in the world. Creative thinking with universal value is
the fundamental necessity of avant-garde images with subversive power.
About Curator/ Yunnia Yang
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 with the thesis ‘Study on “the Paranoiac-Criticism” of Salvador Dalí’
in 2009, with which she was awarded S-An Aesthetics Award in 2010. 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 institutions in Balkan region,
Contemporary Art Foundation(Taiwan), National Culture and Arts
Foundation(Taiwan) and Department of Cultural Affairs, Taipei City
Government(Taiwan).This project will be realized in form of thematic
exhibitions and monographs. Moreover, Hong Kong World Cultures Festival 2013
has been devoted to the focal theme “Lasting Legacies of Eastern Europe”, and
has organized the exhibition “East+Europe: Eastern European Contemporary Art
Exhibition”. Yunnia Yang has been invited to its international symposium “Imagination
of Eastern Europe” as a guest speaker to share her two-year research and
observation on Russia and Eastern Europe. Since 2011, Yunnia Yang has written
several articles on the contemporary arts of Russia and Eastern Europe for
Taiwanese art journals “Art Investment” and “Art Collection + Design”. The
Chinese University of Hong Kong has invited her to write the keynote article “Constructing
the National Mythology of Utopia: Development of the Russian Art in the
Twentieth Century” for the University’s Bimonthly Review “Twentieth-First
Century” of February 2014.
Besides the
curatorial project “ The Apocalyptic Sensibility: The New Media Art from Taiwan”
(WRO Media Art Biennale 2013, Taipei Fine Art Museum in 2015) introspecting our
technologized civilization, Yunnia Yang concerns particularly about the
influences of the contemporary visual culture and curates various creative
video exhibitions. In 2014, she curated the International Creative Video
Exhibition “Imagining Crisis” at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Taipei. This
video project has toured around the contemporary art centers in Poland, Serbia,
Bulgaria and Colombia. In 2015, Yunnia Yang is invited by the 34th Asolo Art
Film Festival to curate the two video projects “ Imagining Crisis” and “ TAIWAN
VIDEA: the Taiwanese Avant-garde Video Exhibition”.
1. The Shortcut to the Systematic Life:
Superficial Life
Tsui Kuang-Yu｜2002｜10 min
2003 The 1st Taishin
Arts Award “Jury’s Special Award”
Tsui
Kuang-Yu transforms the idea of the biological term on mimicry into systematic
adaptation and measurement toward various life circumstances in this work. To
change one’s outfit according to the outside environment is like a
chameleon-like camouflage, and it is also the shortcut to penetrate different
living circles. The work connotes the absurdity of reflection on reality, and
mocks on the schizophrenia caused by the changes of living environment.
2. Secret Plane-Immense Floating
Pu Shuai -Cheng｜2011｜5 min 31 sec
2011 The 6th Digital Art Festival Taipei
Digital video, First Prize
Pu Shuai-Cheg is meant to create multiple transparent planes for his video. It depicts a space where the main character moves and shuttles around. Remnant images of these motions come from daily routines, which accumulate to form another ego. It is a complete non-self who enjoys partial control over the body.
3. Beef-Wonderful Promises
Wang Ding-Yeh｜2011｜4 min 42 sec
2015 Asolo Art Film Festival, World
Premiere
Beef is a metaphor for the political promises that politicians give during the election. Those promises are often made to bring benefits to people, however, how many of them will really accomplish after the election? How much beef can we actually get in the end?
4. Disease
of Manifestation
Wu Tzu-An｜2011｜9 min
2013 The 35th Golden Harvest Awards for Outstanding Short Films, The Best Experimental Film
The passionate political manifestos or the small scale
manifestations in our everyday lives, can be considered as the compulsory
desire to maintain, to repeat, and to reproduce the manifestos, aiming to
achieve an unachievable substance. The act of manifestation is to rupture with
the present world and the compulsion to change it. Here comes the paradox
between outward-looking and inward-looking perspectives of the notion of
revolution, which is the initiation of this project, manifestations as the
infectious psychosis.
5. Ritual of Cathode Ray Tube
Zhang Xu Zhan｜2011-2013｜5 min
2012
The 7th Digital Art Festival, First Prize
Zhang Xu Zhan uses hand-drawn animation to express
his views on contemporary Taiwanese media.The implied symbols in work are embedded
in a torn open CRT (Cathode Ray Tube) screen. The screen is laid out to serve as
a musical score allowing the conductor to lead the people in the performance of
a nonsense chant. United by a meaningless collective consciousness, they seem to
suggest a passionate and ebullient orchestra, but they are actually an absurd and
bizarre gathering. The artist mocks the incredible influence the media has over
contemporary society and the way it stirs the emotions of the public.
6. Character Creator
Wang Deng-Yu｜2006｜4min 41 sec
2006 Single from Summer Lei’s album “The Light of Darkness”
The animated MV created for the Taiwanese singer and songwriter
Summer Lei is a experimental creation of sound-image poetry. Wang Deng-Yu’s
images imply that there are still endless stories in urban ruins for stories of
human beings give a city life. Human beings are the most important element of a
city. The more creative, imaginative human beings are, the more hopeful a city
is.
7. Pick a Future
Rau Kao｜2010｜7 min
2010
The 5th KT Creativity Award Animation, Golden Prize
A young couple practiced
the ancient "ZHUA-ZHOU" ceremony in order to find out the future of
their child. With the subjective influence of the parents, what would the child
pick?
8. Fragment Series
Chang Huei-Ming｜2012｜2min
2013
The 8th Digital Art Festival, First Prize
“Fragment Series” consists of 5 single-channel video. The 5 segments
of the screen include the burning candlelight among the scattered lilies on the
ground, black hair and one foot covered by a pile of dry leaves, a walking
clock on pieces of glass, curved-up animal fur hidden in the bush, and a dying
fish lying down on the pile of rock by the riverside. The five scenes are
endlessly sealed into a circulation of birth and death through the repeated
flow of lighting and shadow on the scene. For the artist, all time represents
the beginning and the end without ceasing. The artist transforms the birth,
life, memories, and time into poetic sceneries through the images of the work.
9. Goodbye Little
Factory
Cheng I-Chun｜2010｜10 min
2011 National Taiwan Museum of Fine Art
"Digital Ark", Digital Art Creation Project
"Goodbye Little Factory" is a triptych of
endlessly scrolling images of OEM facilities that Chen filmed to record the
dying days of this kind of industry. Their mechanical whirring and thuds are
combined with simple childish notes to create something between a soothing
lullaby tinged with Chen’s childhood memories, and a requiem.
10. Landscape in the Mist
Wu Chi-Tsung｜2012｜10min 17 sec
2012 The 6th Shanghai Art Fair
Int’l Contemporary Art Exhibition
2014 Solo Exhibition “Recalibrate”, Centre for Chinese Contemporary
Art in Manchester, UK
This artwork is highly indicative of Wu Chi-Tsung’s thoughts on
Eastern art, interjecting a little individualist imagination amidst the fluid
lines and misty mountaintops of a traditional ink wash landscape.
11. Paysage
Chiang Iuan-Hau &Christian Rizzo (France) ｜2010｜3min 12 sec
2011 “Christian Rizzo + Chiang Iuan-Hau Joint Exhibition” , Museum of Contemporary
Art Taipei, MOCA Studio
In our life,
we move around in our living space. Although our body move around in a
three-dimension space, but our senses are not free without limitation. During
the process of moving, we can only focus on the passage in the way of a “line.” Scene
after scene like the backdrops on the stage, or scene board in the photo
studios, maybe it is reasonable to doubt that besides this linear passage,
other parts might be“nihility.” However, this could be just a second thought. Most of
the times, we are used to watch the scenes one after another in front of our
eyes. When some usual sight between the changing scenes happened rarely,
we might be distracted, and stayed for a moment, and then back to the linear
passage.
12. Double
Huang Zan-Lun｜2015｜12 min 55sec
2015 “The Apocalyptic Sensibility:
the New Media Art from Taiwan” , Taipei Fine Art Museum
Double came into existence from the old Chinese food
culture commonly uses animals’ organs into recipes to complement the
corresponding organs in human’s bodies. The idea of this video is to question
the belief of these organs could enhance weakened parts of human bodies and
even spirits because they carry out similar functions in animals? Should we human
beings multiply these powers as much as possible? How much do we need and what
would we become once we started such an infinite complementary form?
13. Over My Dead Country
Ho Wei-Ming｜2013｜11 min 11sec
013 “MADATAC 06” Award, Spain
This work
transforms a fusion of the tragedy and the celebration; it also reflects the
concerns of media monopoly, social and political predicament. Through the
revelation of flame, will you see the historical process, repetition or ending?
In the end, politics dominates art or art can transcend politics?
