C-LAB’s core CREATORS Creation/Research Support Program (CREATORS Program) is now entering its fifth year. To date, more than 50 projects of diverse themes have received support and developed,  winning prestigious art awards afterwards. In 2022, an open call resulted in the submission of 119 proposals, including 75 for Creation/Research Residency and 44 for Creation/Research Support. Following a two-stage selection process by a jury, six Creation/Research Residency and two Creation/Research Support proposals were selected. Selected proposals are expected to develop interdisciplinarily with C-LAB’s support. Every year, through an open call and two-stage review process, culture-based proposals which feature experimentality, innovativeness and cross-disciplinarity, and connect with the public are selected for the CREATORS Program. Since 2018, supported projects have been developed into mature exhibitions, performances, screenings and cultural actions, with some going on to receive awards or other subsidies. For example, LI Yi-Fan, who participated in the CREATORS Program in 2021, developed the work HOW DO YOU TURN THIS ON, which was exhibited at the 2021 Asian Art Biennial and shortlisted for the 20th Taishin Arts Award. That same year, CHU Chun-Teng, HUANG Ai-Lun, and Susan HUANG received support for the production of a feature-length film, as part of their residency project Borderless, for which they were also awarded NT$6 million from the Funds for Assistance in Domestic Production of Feature-length Films 2021. In 2020, for a follow-up work to the residency project Molasses, Ethanol, Fitness Workshops, Just What Is It That Makes Today’s Life So Different, So Appealing?, LO Yi-Chun received an Honorable Mention at the 2021 Taipei Art Awards. Other works have also been exhibited and recognized. This year, the focus of the CREATORS Program remains on four main areas: vision of the future, spirit of experimentation, cultural context, and cross-disciplinary integration, with two application categories of Creation/Research Residency and Creation/Research Support. An open call for culture-based experimental and artistic creation proposals was held with no theme restrictions. The deadline for submission was January 17. Eight proposals were selected to receive a total of NT$4 million in subsidies. The selected proposals are described below:

• HSIEH I-Yi’s Ocean Encountering River: Aquatic Aesthetics of An Island through artistic and anthropological field work explores life landscapes, time, and aquatic aesthetics in the Taipei Basin, which is densely covered in streams and lakes. Three artists were invited to jointly develop video, sculpture, and installation works.

 

• Exploration and inquiry of objects are the starting points for Yinalang. Group’s In Search of Objects and Other Possibilities. This project incorporates research and observations on the symbol systems of objects and investigates possibilities for object theatre.

 

• LEE Yung-Chih’s Peeling—Technical Operations of Common Marks focuses on the adhesive coating materials. Through the collection of “anti-restoration” traces and artificial production of traces of peeling, reverse thinking is encouraged on material aesthetics and restoration behavior.

 

• Through three core elements: programming, physiognomy, and avatars, HSU Sheng-Kai’s Your Digital Twin personifies the behaviors of digital service users and pays attention to the authenticity and methods for definition of the “true self” and “meta self.”

 

• For Punishment 2030, SHIH Yi-Shan attempts to build a “punishment system” for the near-future world, structuring the data and discussing future punishment methods with digital twin technologies based on new measurement principles.

 

• The starting point for Melmel CHEN and HUNG Mu-Cheng’s Bathybius Trilogy I: Slime Molds, Cellular Computing and Collective Wisdom is slime molds. This project spans document analysis, workshops, and artistic creation to explore the connections between raw materials and the universe, as well as the topological imagination of matter in nonlinear narratives.

 

• Engineering of Volcano Detonating’s The Science Fiction of Inter-volcanic Islands: Trans-disciplinary Practice of Geo-art, Ufology and Volcanology examines the relationships among ethnic groups, history, and volcanic islands in the waters around Taiwan, practicing geo-art through scientific/non-scientific knowledge productions, public exhibitions and performances.

 

• Through dialogue, Rikey TENN, WU Chi-Yu, and Alice KO Nien-Pu invite researchers from different fields to write, with the expectation of completing a series of chapters from local to planet to universe on themes related to technology (objects) to create A Field Guide to Getting Lost in the Southern Universe from inferred time and space coordinates.

These cross-disciplinary, culture-based, experimental projects will be developed over six to eight months with the support of C-LAB. During the period, activities such as lectures, workshops, and open studios will be held and open to the public to  connect with the outside world while demonstrating the experimental processes. Through these unique CREATORS mechanisms, the ecosystem for cultural experimentation is formed based on a vision for the future. In addition, in 2020, C-LAB launched the CREATORS Sound-Off: Up-and-Coming Creators Residency Program for young sound and music creators, oriented toward co-created and collaborative projects. The result of the open call for this year’s residency program was announced on February 24. Following a two-stage process involving reviewers from both Taiwan and France, creators HUANG Chi-Yen and CHENG Dao-Yuan were selected. They will participate in a residency at the Taiwan Sound Lab, and receive technical and other support such as the use of equipment and space to co-create works with members of the lab. Composer HUANG Chi-Yen makes use of instrumentals, electroacoustic sounds, multi-channel surround system, and videos to create works. HUANG’s current project Engram focuses on questions of “reality,” with the interaction of live music performances and video to further explore the possibilities between the two as a cross-disciplinary practice in the field of contemporary music. New media artist CHENG Dao-Yuan experiments with the relationships among different media such as sounds, videos, and installations to investigate the relativity and co-existence of the state of self and the essence of existence. CHENG’s project DOOME: Null Gods examines the convergence and orientation of human collective unconsciousness and digital information, constructing a state between existence and extinction and researching the coordination and dislocation of multiple sound sources and timbres.