Following the opening of Contemporary Culture Lab’s (C-LAB) annual exhibition, 2024 Future Media FEST – Singularity, C-LAB’s outdoor dome theater FUTURE VISION LAB 2024 is unveiled to visitors this fall from November 1 at the C-LAB East Lawn. The Taiwan and Australia Choreography Exchange Program, a three-year collaboration of works combining technology and dance between C-LAB and Critical Path, Australia’s leading choreographic research and development center, will also put on a trial performance of BODY-DATA-LOOP. These and other exciting performances continue through the end of the year.
FUTURE VISION LAB celebrates its fifth year with significant upgrades completed in last year’s "DOME 2.0" project, supported by the Ministry of Culture. The revamped immersive dome theater has been fitted with new hardware and software, and seating capacity increased to over 100. Patents granted for structural elements and projection systems mark the project's maturity, standing as a key venue for audio-visual creative experiments under the designation “FVL DOME”.
Showcasing Diverse Cultures and Issues through a collection of international works
The FUTURE VISION LAB 2024 program features outstanding works from Taiwan, Germany, Australia, China, Japan, South Korea, and Bosnia and Herzegovina. From November 1 to December 22, 15 programs will be presented, along with three introductory lectures and workshops across eight weekends. This year's call for submissions in April received a record 53 entries from both domestic and international artists, with nearly 40% submissions coming from abroad. C-LAB also reaches out to various local and international organizations to bring a variety of exhibitions, screenings, and live performances.
FUTURE VISION LAB commissions artists to produce opening videos each year. This year’s video is Second Nature by Taiwanese artist WU Ke-Jyun, currently based in Los Angeles. The work depicts multiple guises of the natural world in the digital era and invites viewers to reflect upon human interactions with nature. Each feature presentation this year will also begin with a short segment of the colorful and fantastical work Solitarium by Japanese artist Sumito SAKAKIBARA, drawing audiences into the immersive experience.
Screenings for this year represent diverse cultures and issues, starting with Demo: Dome by animator CHUANG Ho, the artist’s second hand-drawn dome animation after Night Walk. Produced in collaboration with artist Yuchi HSIAO, this piece explores the unique visual language of dome projections through experimental imagery. 4993 Feet Under by artists Ina CHEN, Calvin SIN, and LU Te-Hsing addresses the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill, retracing the lasting effects of split-second disasters. Module IN DOME by a group of Taiwan, Bosnia and Herzegovina artists CHENG Wei-Zh, BILLAIN, and Jeffrey LIU invites audiences to decode mysterious electronic signals emitted from an obscure device. Iwakura, a collaborative work between the MUTEK Japan Association and the Miraikan – The National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation, is created by video artist Ali Mahmut DEMIREL and ambient musician Kazuya NAGAYA and produced by Maurice JONES to guide viewers on a profound tour of the grandeurs of nature.
In addition to screenings, an increasing number of creators have been experimenting with live performances at the FVL DOME. HSIAO Li-Chi presents Resonance in the Virtual Realm, a work that reflects on digital life and virtual identity through sound, light, and circuits. WU Cheng-Ru's Dream Percept invites performers to bring AI to dream and discuss AI sentience. The group Aisthesis Savage uses large language models to generate real-time interactive music and visuals, with dancers wearing electrotactile receptors and cybernetic prosthetics. C-LAB Future Vision Lab and the Digital Art Foundation collaborate to create DOME of the Gods, forging a performance style that integrates virtual and real elements. The Future Vision Party series is a multi-artist performance collaboration with Korea Arts Management Service, KAMS that brings along the artist collective “HH” for a live jam session with Korean artists at Future Vision Party #2. C-LAB continues to focus on generative art as a core creative element, using AI technology to create and present cutting-edge work.
Three Years of Taiwan-Australia Dance Exchange: Co-creation of BODY-DATA-LOOP
The 2022-2024 Taiwan and Australia Choreography Exchange Program is C-LAB’s three-year collaboration with Critical Path and the Cultural Division of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Sydney. Through artist residencies, exchanges, and the intersections of dance and technology, it culminates in the co-production of BODY-DATA-LOOP between Taiwanese artists TIAN Zi-Ping and LEE Ming-Chieh, and Australian artists Nasim PATEL and Roslyn ORLANDO. The project curator Matt CORNELL said that this work focuses on togetherness, and the ways togetherness is aided by - and interrupted by – technology as the title explains in an endless loop. The trial performance debuts on November 15 at the FVL DOME, with official performances on November 23-24 at the U-108 SPACE at the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, followed by an exhibition at the Museum from November 26 to December 22.
Over the past three years, the collaboration between Taiwanese and Australian artists has gradually developed into a choreographic performance that incorporates body movement data. Bodies are transformed into data points and represented within the context of the performance installation. The artists explore digital and cultural elements, including language, dance, telecommunications, video projection, chants, and group communion, aiming to dissolve boundaries. BODY-DATA-LOOP attempts to layer time within a 360-degree space through technology, opening a third space between the digital realm and the real world across exhibitions and live performances.
In tandem with the spectacular array of autumn events, the C-LAB 2024 Future Media FEST – Singularity exhibition continues from October 4 to December 15, offering an exposition on the evolution of artificial intelligence and social issues that focuses on current global concerns and new perspectives on AI developments. Through this exhibition, C-LAB invites audiences to understand contemporary and future artistic creation, imagining the evolving landscape in the human world together.