Using programming languages as their means of expression, designers, programmers, and content producers communicate with computers in codes and then present their creative ideas and artistic practice to the public. However, is it nothing more than one-way communication for those who are unfamiliar with coding? If we treat programs as media or a medium and establish various kinds of communities around it, is it possible for us to create multi-dimensional dialogues and spark imagination of future from different perspectives? If programs represent our future, what kind of landscape can the code-forged connections describe?
To address these questions, the 2021 C-LAB Future Media Arts Festival starts with contemplating and creating the relational trinity of program, humanity, and society. It will host three major events, including “PCD Taiwan,” “TouchDesigner: New Media Hub,” and “Playaround: Generation and Evolution.” By virtue of the hands-on practice and discussion in the forms of workshop, talk, and forum, we try to reify “coding” and “decoding” into a two-way relationship which can be understood or even be swapped.
In these events, we keep pondering the significance of programming languages for human beings, which not only involves tools and technologies, but also concerns the diversity and inclusivity of technological media, such as the links between cultures and sciences, programs and gender, as well as between art and engineering. We expect these compound relations to be a key to the world of coding, whereby we can contemplate the possibilities of future media in a collective manner.
PCD Taiwan (2021/10/19-24)
As an open-source programming language, Processing was developed by Casey Reas and Ben Fry from the MIT Media Lab in 2001. It demonstrates creativity by way of visualization, which is not only a crucial foundation for software art, but also the kernel structure in the development of new media art and tech-art. Since 2017, the Processing Foundation has run the Processing Community Day (PCD) by supporting its members to hold this event in their cities, so as to expand the global reach of Processing. From 19 to 24 October 2021, C-LAB will host the first “PCD Taiwan” that gathers Processing users around the world. We invite artists, designers, and teachers from home and abroad to review the development of Processing, explore the latest trend, and co-construct imagination about future from the perspectives of “diversity,” “community,” and “education.”
👉🏻Program
TouchDesigner: New Media Hub (2021/11/02-07)
TouchDesigner (TD) is a node-based visualization environment for creative coding. That is, it thinks and operates in image rather than in text. By dint of the connection and superimposition of nodes, it can deliver a holistic presentation of real-time interactive multimedia content, which makes itself one of the most vital visual computing tools extensively applied in the fields of design, art, video game, performance, installation, and filmmaking. As a graphical user interface, TD has led to significant breakthroughs and effects in technological media and transdisciplinary projects. From 2 to 7 November 2021, the “TouchDesigner: New Media Hub” will be held during the C-LAB Future Media Arts Festival by inviting TD experts and creators from Taiwan and foreign countries to open up the possibilities for future visual creation through the hands-on practice in the workshops and professional experience sharing in the talks.
👉🏻Program
Playaround: Generation and Evolution (2021/11/16-21)
Playaround comprises artists and scholars who identify with the spirit of FLOSS (Free/Libre Open Source Software) and share their knowledge and creations in the form of workshop. As a workshop constantly focusing on digital culture and creation, Playaround has incubated, encouraged, and supported innumerable Taiwanese artists in the fields of new media, tech-art, and transdisciplinary creation since 2008. Espousing the ideas of freedom, openness, and sharing, Playaround galvanizes and helps young creators to observe and contemplate the changes in the digital culture, and meanwhile find their raisons d’être for artistic creation from the techniques and inspirations they acquired from the workshop. “Playaround: Generation and Evolution,” an event to be held from 16 to 21 November 2021, appeals to the community and artists for reviewing and creating the future of tech-art in Taiwan. We invite previous Playaround participants to provide associated material, including the posters, designs, products, timetables, content plans, webpages, works, experimental processes, semi-finished products, codes, photos, videos, notes, blogs, and even the contents under development, insofar as to document these precious memories. As a reference for the present, these records of Playaround’s growth may help us rethink the future of new media art and tech-art.
👉🏻Program
Guided Tour & Artists and Curators Talk (2021/10/09-11/23)
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▌10/09 (SAT) 13:30–14:30: Curator’s Tour｜Escher TSAI
▌10/16 (SAT) 13:30–14:30: Curator’s Tour｜WU Dar-Kuen
▌10/13 (SAT) 13:30–15:00: Guided Tour｜TAN Tien
Meeting Point: C-LAB, West i-CENTER, 1F (Advance registration is required.)
* Stay tuned for more guided tours announced on the official website of C-LAB.
Guide
｜TAN Tien
TAN Tien, born in 1984, a performer from Taipei Taiwan. Graduated from L’École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq (2013-2015). Founded M.O.I. PRODUCTION since 2016, Starting his own career on performing, directing and teaching of Lecoq method. Also works on contemporary mime, clown, mask-playing and objects individually. Now, focusing on extending the performing of contemporary mime happen in non-theatre spaces.
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Please note: All the talks will be live streamed on the Facebook Page of C-LAB Technology Media Platform.
▌New Normal · New Future—AND Artist Talk｜NANONANO, TIAN Zi-Ping x Mailantia Dance Company, CHANG Ting-Tong, SHIH Yi-Shan, Escher TSAI (Moderator)
Time: 10/29 (FRI) 19:00–20:00
Venue: CREATORS’ Space R102 Coworking Space (Advance registration is required.)
In collaboration with the Ministry of Culture’s promotion and tutorial program for techno-art experimentation and innovation, Taiwan Arts and Technology Center (AND) annually selects subjects and creative teams having experimental and innovative potentials in Taiwan, helps them put their experimental conceptions into practice, and offers them greater support and resources. This program has entered its fourth year since 2017, and has supported a total of 19 creative projects. The selected projects take on diverse forms and address multifarious issues. They set great store by transdisciplinary dialogue and combination, such as conviction and animal protection, folk culture and biomedicine, machines and dancers, artificial and nature, physical and abstract, or the Internet culture and the reflection on hegemony. Besides, these projects not only embody the spirit of experimentation and critical thinking, but also demonstrate salient feasibility. Moreover, they have received awards and exhibition invitations at home and abroad. Featuring the theme “New Normal,” this talk invites the AND project director Escher TSAI and the four selected creative teams to share their experiences as to how the AND helps materialize their experimental conceptions, and how they use their experimental works as a response to the world in which new normal has become normal.
Participants
｜NANONANO
NANONANO is an art group founded by artist HSU Hsun-Hsiang and materials engineer HUANG Yin-Hao in 2019. NANONANO is focusing on the environmental future phenomenon and using the top industrial technology to create the possibility of the living future landscape.
｜TIAN Zi-Ping x Mailantia Dance Company
TIAN Zi-Ping graduated from the new media art department of Taipei National University of the Arts. TIAN primarily focuses on the reflection towards the technical production and media era and attempts to achieve multi-perspective artwork through the creative process. TIAN shifts between being an audiovisual technician, visual designer, and executive producer of new media devices at exhibitions and theatre. TIAN has won the first “LAB x The Young Artists’ Atelier” held by the National Taichung Theatre in 2020, the Taiyuan Technology Performing Arts Awards, the Taiwan Emerging Art Awards, and the Outstanding New Media Award.
The Mailantia Dance Company embraces the idea of being a professional dance group and embodies the traditional training of both East and West. Further, the Mailantia unites the interdisciplinary elements, street culture, and diverse artistic expertise to form their extraordinary body language and unique style.
｜CHANG Ting-Tong
CHANG Ting-Tong received his MFA at Goldsmiths, University of London, and has exhibited internationally, with solo exhibitions at Kunstkraftwerk Leipzig, Asia House London and Taipei Fine Arts Museum. He has participated in group shows and commissioned projects in Guangzhou Triennial, Taipei Biennial, Saatchi Gallery, Compton Verney Art Gallery and Wellcome Trust. CHANG’s major awards include the 19th Taishin Arts Award, Taipei Art Award 2020, Art Central Hong Kong RISE Award 2016, VIA Arts Prize 2016 and Royal Society of Sculptors Bursary Award 2015. His works can be found in the Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Embassy of Brazil London, Noblesse Collection Seoul, JM SR Collection Mexico and private collections in Europe and Asia.
｜SHIH Yi-Shan
SHIH Yi-Shan, the founder of Declaration of Airborne Auto-Dynamic Power, has regularly taken part in the “topic connecting” started by the “imaginary researcher” LAI Ho-Wan since 2019. Contemporary places of meeting are in fact made up of all kinds of topic labels, such as the hashtag (#) concept. If one identifies with or pays attention to a certain topic, one will be connected under the topic’s framework. Thus, the meeting place is instantly formed. Accordingly, when the topic discussion reaches an end, the community and space dissolve along with it—this so far has been the mode of operation for “topic connecting.”
｜Taiwan Arts and Technology Center (AND)
AND, operated by Dimension Plus, is a platform for arts and technology interdisciplinary experimental creation, matchmaking and promotion. Dimension Plus is working long-term to promote Taiwan’s arts and technology experiments, promotion and matchmaking work. Along with the Ministry of Culture’s Arts and Technology: Creative Innovation and Counseling Project, we seek to integrate Taiwan’s arts and technology resources with the goal of cultivating and assisting up-and-coming technology and arts groups, connecting with international networks and resources, helping emerging creators realize their experimental ideas and obtaining more support and development for them.
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▌Overflowing Future Cognition: Ethics of Art and Technology｜WU Dar-Kuen, LIN Ying-Tung, Escher TSAI
Time: 10/30 (SAT) 14:00–15:00
Venue: CREATORS’ Space R102 Coworking Space (Advance registration is required.)
This talk invites LIN Ying-Tung and the two curators of the C-LAB Future Media Arts Festival—WU Dar-Kuen and Escher TSAI—to discuss how technology infiltrates into our quotidian existence, what aspects it implicates, and how we discern the social and cognitive relations it fosters.
Participants
｜WU Dar-Kuen
WU Dar-Kuen now is senior curator of Taiwan Contemporary Culture Lab (C-LAB). He was the director of Taipei Artist Village and Treasure Hill Artist Village, the founding chairman of Taiwan Art Space Alliance (TASA), and the curator of Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts. He won the Jury's Special Award of the 10th Taishin Art Award with his project “Republic without People” (2011), and “Asia Anarchy Alliance” (2014) was exhibited at Tokyo TWS (Tokyo) and Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts (Taipei). He participated in “Roppongi Crossing 2016: My Body, Your Voice" Mori Art Museum (Tokyo),” “CHRONIQUES—Digital Imagination Biennale 2020 (Marseille),” “The 13th Gwangju Biennale: Double Echoing Pavilion Project (Gwangju),” and many curatorial projects.
｜LIN Ying-Tung
LIN Ying-Tung is an Associate Professor in the Institute of Philosophy of Mind and Cognition at National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University. Her academic interests include the philosophy of mind, consciousness studies and neuroethics. Her current research projects examine issues concerning self-consciousness in memory and imagination, pain and suffering, as well as the impact of technology on the human mind.
｜Escher TSAI
New Media Art Artist, Producer, Creative Director of Dimension Plus
Director of Arts and Technology: Creative Innovation and Counseling Project Production supervisor of “3x3x6” Taiwan Exhibition in 58th Venice Biennale
Curator of LIVES, Jut Art Museum, Taipei, Taiwan, 2022
Production supervisor of Lab Kill Lab, C-LAB, Taipei, Taiwan, 2020
Production supervisor of Future Vision Lab, C-LAB, Taipei, Taiwan, 2020
Curator of Nuit Blanche, Taipei 2016-2017
Curator of Taoyuan Art x Technology Festival, Taiwan, 2017
Curator of Encounter Once in a Lifetime－Toyo Ito Architecture Exhibition, Taichung, Taiwan, 2016
He devotes himself into digital art research, promotion and creation. He was Senior Consultant of the Preparatory Office of Technology Media Center (Taiwan Contemporary Culture Lab), planner of many digital arts creation and center, host of Digital art exchange platform and “Playaround Workshop,” creative director of Microplayground.
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▌Visual Imaging/Future Constructing｜Betty Apple, NANONANO, HUANG Yu-Hsiung, TSAI Chi-Hung, WU Dar-Kuen & Escher TSAI (Moderator)
Time: 11/23 (TUE) 19:00–20:00
Venue: CREATORS’ Space R102 Coworking Space (Advance registration is required.)
This talk invites the participating artists of the C-LAB Future Media Arts Festival, including Betty Apple, NANONANO, and HUANG Yu-Hsiung, and the principal of Future Vision Lab, TSAI Chi-Hung, to share their creative philosophies behind their exhibits and discuss the relations between their works and future visual imaging technologies, so as to analyze the imaging possibilities involved therein.
Participants
｜Betty Apple
Betty Apple is an experimental avant-garde artist based in Taipei who belongs to the millennial generation. She has received her B.A. in Theater and M.A. in New Media Art at the Taipei National University of the Arts. Her artistic practice is deeply shaped by rave parties, subcultures, avant-garde theatre, new media films, and post-internet art. The core idea of “body politics” is manifested in many of her projects while she works as an electronic music creator, a sound performer, a live art practitioner, a DJ, and an event planner for art raves. Betty Apple is the 2021 feature artist in the “Summer Photography Series (série photo d'été)” of the French newspaper, Libération. Recent international activities as an invited artist include performances in Futuro Fantastico: Santarcangelo 2050 in Italy, CTM Festival for Adventurous Music and Art 2021 in Berlin, and Mona Foma 2021 in Australia.
｜NANONANO
NANONANO is an art group founded by artist HSU Hsun-Hsiang and materials engineer HUANG Yin-Hao in 2019. NANONANO is focusing on the environmental future phenomenon and using the top industrial technology to create the possibility of the living future landscape.
｜HUANG Yu-Hsiung
HUANG Yu-Hsiung is an educator and artist of new media art. He is currently a lecturer in the Department of New Media Art, National Taipei University of the Arts. His specialty is the integration of transdisciplinary research between interactive technology and new media art, including the translation of cultural history through technology media, the connection of interactive technology and the virtual world. In recent years, his creations have focused on the conflicts and contradictions between media technology and humanities and art, using artificial intelligence, machine learning, programming languages, sensors, etc. to interpret the relationship between humans and media technology
｜TSAI Chi-Hung
Inspired by some professionals and decided to step into the field of new media art from the information engineering background, Chi-Hung obtained an MA in New Media Art, Taipei National University of Arts, and started to create art in different formats of “information.” He is the co-founder of WINNOWORK and is the technical director in FUTURE VISION LAB of C-LAB Technology Media Platform. Dedicated to creating the different combinations of analog and digital signal, Chi-Hung specializes in software/hardware system integration, system design, generative art, audio/visual installations, and explores any possibility between different media via different kinds of technical formats.
Moderators
｜WU Dar-Kuen
WU Dar-Kuen now is senior curator of Taiwan Contemporary Culture Lab (C-LAB). He was the director of Taipei Artist Village and Treasure Hill Artist Village, the founding chairman of Taiwan Art Space Alliance (TASA), and the curator of Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts. He won the Jury's Special Award of the 10th Taishin Art Award with his project “Republic without People” (2011), and “Asia Anarchy Alliance” (2014) was exhibited at Tokyo TWS (Tokyo) and Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts (Taipei). He participated in “Roppongi Crossing 2016: My Body, Your Voice" Mori Art Museum (Tokyo),” “CHRONIQUES—Digital Imagination Biennale 2020 (Marseille),” “The 13th Gwangju Biennale: Double Echoing Pavilion Project (Gwangju),” and many curatorial projects.
｜Escher TSAI
New Media Art Artist, Producer, Creative Director of Dimension Plus
Director of Arts and Technology: Creative Innovation and Counseling Project Production supervisor of “3x3x6” Taiwan Exhibition in 58th Venice Biennale
Curator of LIVES, Jut Art Museum, Taipei, Taiwan, 2022
Production supervisor of Lab Kill Lab, C-LAB, Taipei, Taiwan, 2020
Production supervisor of Future Vision Lab, C-LAB, Taipei, Taiwan, 2020
Curator of Nuit Blanche, Taipei 2016-2017
Curator of Taoyuan Art x Technology Festival, Taiwan, 2017
Curator of Encounter Once in a Lifetime－Toyo Ito Architecture Exhibition, Taichung, Taiwan, 2016
He devotes himself into digital art research, promotion and creation. He was Senior Consultant of the Preparatory Office of Technology Media Center (Taiwan Contemporary Culture Lab), planner of many digital arts creation and center, host of Digital art exchange platform and “Playaround Workshop,” creative director of Microplayground.
Please Note:
Due to the spread of COVID-19, the organizer reserves the right to change, adjust or cancel the events at any time.