The Taiwan Contemporary Culture Lab (C-LAB) and Hong’s Foundation for Education & Culture have collaborated for the first time to present the 2nd Tung Chung Art Award “Hsien-Yu CHENG Solo Exhibition: {Assimilator}” in Art Space III beginning June 6. This exhibition includes works by CHENG created over the past decade that were inspired by his observations of and reflections on applications of online media and technology, as well as simulated perception. In this atypical exhibition space, CHENG has re-created/elevated five installations. Through digital and mechanical devices, the roles of technology in society and its effects on human ethics and daily life are explored.
The title of this exhibition “Assimilator” refers to the positive and negative relationships in the processes of absorbing messages, learning, and obtaining information. In this era when humanity is on the verge of welcoming the “zero latency” Internet society, there is continued evolution of computer software and hardware that will inevitably bring people and the Internet closer together. The Internet that we know today developed into a new type of Intranet (early internal network not available to the public). Communication and exchanges between people and between people and the environment have become more convenient but have also triggered anxiety and feelings of uncertainty.
Among the five installations, CHENG’s new work Hijacker:{，} is related to dreamscapes and imagination. CHENG believes that when we hear someone describe a dream, we use our imagination to create images of it in our mind. An attempt was made to endow machines with imagination, utilizing various tools to transform dreams into images. In one section of the venue is presented the equipment and system and in another the sentences describing the situations and the images developed by a computer and the dream journals of the artist. Together, they present tool- or system-based dreamscapes. This work simulates society’s specification assimilation and discusses the changes produced during message transmission due to host-guest translocation and the possible effects of imagination.
Invitation and What’s in the Middle explore the negative impacts of Internet use on daily life, such as hacking of personal information, spam messages, cybercrime, and viruses. Discharged What You Charged encourages visitors to part with their cellphones for a short period of time to observe their emotional reactions and to reflect on the dominance of machines in daily life. Portrait2020_2011re-edition is a series of works developed since 2010 that includes a robot with emotional response mechanisms that cries when no one is in the exhibition venue.
As we enter the third decade of the 21st century, human and computer viruses have reached every corner of the world. During this global pandemic, technology has played a number of roles, including perpetrator, whistleblower, and supply chain. This once again demonstrates that digital technologies have taken over society as humans indulge in convenience.
About the Tung Chung Art Award
The Tung Chung Art Award was established in 2015 by CHIEN Ching-Hui in honor of her father, CHIEN Tung-Chung, who enriched his life through literature, art, and film. Beginning initially as a literary award, its scope was then expanded to include the arts in 2018, in line with the “planting of seeds” spirit of Hong’s Foundation for Education & Culture. Every year, avant-garde concepts of cultural venture capital are applied in the selection of a Taiwanese contemporary artist with a unique view and an international perspective. The winner is provided with support during the conception stage of a creative work. In 2019, the second Tung Chung Art Award winner was new media artist CHENG Hsien-Yu. His works focus on contradictory emotions and anxieties brought about by interactions between contemporary technologies and people, which is very timely given the current coronavirus pandemic.
“New Normal” of Disease Prevention – Exhibition Activity Series
A series of activities has been organized to complement this exhibition. Associate Professor GONG Jow-Jiun of Tainan National University of the Arts and artist CHENG Hsien-Yu are invited for the “Human-Machine, Affect, Jamming, Interface” forum to carry out discussions on the state of co-existence between humans and technology, which is continually enhanced as humans are gradually dictated to by machines, influencing what they eat and wear and where they live and go. In this process of “assimilation” are people able to “think independently” and to “imagine”? The workshop “You Are to Have 0 Defects” was inspired by the Portrait2020_2011re-edition installation. It explores artificial intelligence and whether robots possess emotions. CHENG leads participants in producing devices from recycled or discarded electrical appliances that incorporate the precision of robots and the human ability to laugh and cry.
Admission to this exhibition and its related activities is free. For more information visit the C-LAB Website (https://clab.org.tw/), C-LAB Facebook Fans Page, or Hong’s Foundation for Education & Culture Website (https://www.hfec.org.tw/). Due to the coronavirus pandemic, Taiwan’s Central Epidemic Command Center has advised that visitors to this exhibition wear a face mask and have their temperature checked upon entry. Disease prevention measures are subject to change. For updates, please check the C-LAB Website.
Exhibition Information
Exhibition dates: June 6-August 2, 2020 (Tuesday-Sunday 11:00-18:00)
Venue: Art Space III, Taiwan Contemporary Culture Lab
Sponsor: CHIEN Ching-Hui
Co-organizers: Hong’s Foundation for Education & Culture, Taiwan Contemporary Culture Lab
Equipment sponsor: Panasonic