text by Chia Chi Jason Wang
Sunlight spills through the left-side window after midday into a living room—much like what one usually sees in an IKEA store—filling the space with warmth and tranquility, while emanating the elegance and cultivated mannerisms of a bourgeois household. The round clock on the wall shows that it’s a little past two. The couch is still warm, the book flipped open, and the newspapers spread on the table. A wooden rocking horse can be spotted in the foreground. It is clearly an intimate portrait of a small family space where the owner happens to have just walked away.
One soon detects a strangeness that permeates the air, as tiny bubbles begin to rise rapidly and book pages flipping fast. We soon realize that this is the spectacle of an underwater dwelling. Movements surge, and then with deliberate control and constraint, the turbulent living room returns to calm. All of a sudden, an instant blast from underground demolishes this microcosm. After a period of violent agitation, the shattered living room dramatically returns intact—to its former warmth and tranquility.
Yuan Goang-Ming titles this looping video work Dwelling (2014), referencing a 1951 speech “…Poetically Man Dwells…” by German philosopher Martin Heidegger (1889-1976), who titled his text after a verse from Romantic poet Friedrich Hölderlin (1770-1843). With severe housing shortage in Germany after World War II, Heidegger delivered two renowned philosophical texts with regards to architecture and dwelling that same year. It was his view that, despite living problems caused by housing shortage, to be at peace was a more important issue. According to Heidegger, “When the poetic appropriately comes to light, then man dwells humanly on this earth…”1 In another text on mind settling, he further elaborates, “To dwell, to be set at peace, means to remain at peace within the free, the preserve, the free sphere that safeguards each thing in its nature.”2 He continues to state that mortals exist between the sky, the earth, and the divinities; only when all four are in harmony can peaceful dwelling be fulfilled.3
With “…poetically man dwells…” as a starting point, Heidegger speculates on modern mankind’s failure to dwell poetically. In other words, the “unpoetic dwelling” has become the norm. Heidegger believes that poetry is what really let us dwell, and that contemplating the nature of dwelling is contemplating human existence. In response to the philosopher’s inquiry, Yuan applies violence as an aesthetic means in Dwelling, conveying his apprehension of life and living, and his fear of annihilation.
In recreating a common scene of “poetic dwelling,” Yuan gives a microcosmic warning, magnifying the unforeseen explosion, and forcing the viewer to witness a catastrophe. The irony is that there is nothing poetic in the “poetic dwelling” but ruthless extermination. This inevitable mental breakdown unfolds in his other new pieces. With the exhibition title “An Uncanny Tomorrow,” Yuan undoubtedly refers to the bleak present, even with indignation. Furthermore, in works Indication (2014) and Prophecy (2014), Yuan unusually expresses his discontent with the present political climate and status quo in Taiwan with straightforward body language.
Video works Landscape of Energy (2014) and The 561st Hour of Occupation (2014) tell the story of unpoetic dwelling in today's world, more specifically Taiwan, with a documentary approach. While Heidegger’s hopeful words on architecture uniting the sky, earth, divinities and man still ring in our ears, the reality constructed in Yuan's work appears cold and desolate. He creates a certain atmosphere where the imagery, despite its factual nature, transports viewers to the ruins of tomorrow in an apocalyptic dream. In both pieces, the camera overlooks the scene emotionlessly from a high angle, reminiscent of video surveillance. The slow, back-and-forth camera movement reminds one of the panning technique favored in Yuan's past works. Yet now the view through his lens turns into an inspecting gaze.
Through the lens, reality appears tamed and collected, but this is in fact an illusion of vision and power. Whether it is the nuclear power facilities in Landscape of Energy or the assembly hall of the Legislative Yuan in The 561st Hour of Occupation, these are unmistakably restricted areas from which the public is banned in real life. When the camera sneaks in from above and pans back and forth in these restricted areas, the imagery of these two agencies that stand for the ruling power of the state apparatus suddenly becomes sensational. It is worth noting that the artist intentionally slows down the camera movement, offering a sustained view in slow panning, while emphasizing the spectacle of the forbidden ground with a surreal sense of solemnity.
And yet here is the irony. Upon first glance, the viewer feels a sense of privilege in surveying a restricted area, at the mercy of the artist who directs the camera and executes postproduction. But in reality, we have no right to inspect these scenes; to be more accurate, we as ordinary individuals, are the ones governed and monitored by the state apparatus. The imagery that the viewer sees in Landscape of Energy is dubious, because the artist has in fact applied for legitimate permission to shoot. As a result, the view through the camera lens and the shot distance imply authorization for filming. Nevertheless, the aesthetic breakthrough lies in how the artist produces ingenious imagery that requires a deeper understanding and further interpretation despite limitations and restrictions.
According to Yuan Goang-Ming, Landscape of Energy was inspired by the aftermath of a massive earthquake that occurred on March 11, 2011 off the coast of northeast Japan, triggering a tsunami which damaged the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant under Tokyo Electric Power Company, causing a radiation leak. On the day of the incident, the brother-in-law of Yuan’s Japanese wife was stranded, and the news left the family extremely anxious.4 This warning that came from the disaster and its psychological impact prompted Yuan to conceive and develop this work in the following year.5 The nuclear power issue has long been a controversy in Taiwan, and now even become a political battleground. Under these circumstances, viewers may perceive Landscape of Energy as an object of projection for their own political views, although this was not the intent of the artist.
Yuan’s earlier works draw from physical and mental perceptions of the body in response to its surroundings, with the body and its metaphor as his usual medium and means. After Yuan got married in 2005, the home became a new subject in his art practice, still bearing a strong autobiographical sense, focusing on the home and changes that happen in reality. Whether the subject is the body or home, identity politics or socio-cultural allusions are always present in his work, but there had hardly been any totemic national political symbols, let alone a direct expression of opinion on this topic.
However, the Presidential Office Building does flash by briefly in the video work Disappearing Landscape – Passing (2007). In terms of politics and economy, the home and nation are inevitably interdependent. Influenced by his father's cultural upbringing, Yuan admits to his Confucian thinking, which makes it difficult to separate himself from the socio-political reality in Taiwan. Against this backdrop, Yuan uses long politicized images such as the nuclear power plants and nuclear waste storage sites as his subject in Landscape of Energy, where he not only expresses his concern over the environment, but also questions the status quo in Taiwan.
The logic of Landscape of Energy is not without its similarities to the Disappearing Landscape series. Slowly panning, the camera overlooks abandoned residential properties in Taichung, an elementary school on Orchid Island, the ocean, a nuclear waste storage facility, the crowded South Bay of Pingtung that neighbors the nuclear power plants, a simulated control room inside the nuclear power plant, an abandoned Taichung amusement park, and the empty landscape outside the nuclear power plant. The camera eventually returns to the forsaken residential areas, panning over empty spaces in the buildings, a vast expanse of water, and finally the metropolitan skyline of Tokyo Bay.6 A dormant crisis lurks, while lingering apprehension haunts the viewer, foreboding the death of tomorrow.
For The 561st Hour of Occupation, Yuan was obliged—or settled for—location shooting, which magnifies the timeliness and controversy of the event that the video captures – the Sunflower Movement.7 Faced with the global economy, Taiwan has never been able to escape government interference and infiltration surrounding cross-strait relations. In recent years, the dysfunctional state apparatus incited crisis awareness among the younger generation. More recently the regime of Ma Ying-jeou disregarded the controversy surrounding the Cross-Strait Service Trade Agreement, and even tried forcing a vote on the agreement at the legislature, triggering a widespread student uprising. On the evening of March 18, 2014, students unprecedentedly occupied the Legislative Yuan, insisting that the government amend policies and procedures, and seeking dialogue. The occupation continued until the evening of April 10, a total of 24 days, which amounted to 585 hours. Yuan was invited by the students to document the event, and entered the assembly hall of the Legislative Yuan 24 hours before the occupation came to an end.
Yuan employs a high-angle shot in filming the assembly hall, with the trajectory of the camera set between the podium and second-floor public gallery. In doing so, he sets up a diagonal path across the room for the camera to move back and forth. Synchronized with the motion of the camera, the deep and solemn national anthem is reminiscent of a funeral march.
The assembly hall captured by the camera becomes rather like a refuge in crisis despite the obvious occupation by the students. The sense of insecurity out of the survival instinct, or in Heidegger’s words, the fear that one cannot be set at peace and be safeguarded, has spurred the younger generation to rise up against the state apparatus, intensely questioning ways of dwelling. The Legislative Yuan, a system that was supposed to protect the interests of the people, is now paralyzed by its own dysfunction and negligence. A greater irony lies in that the assembly hall has become a temporary sanctuary during the protest for these anxious young people concerned about their possible displacement in the future.
Through the imagery of The 561st Hour of Occupation, we witness how the students transform the dysfunctional Legislative Yuan into a halfway house which is neither quiet, habitable, or safe, as the police outside threatens with measures of institutional violence such as expulsions or arrests. Tension between the government and the people seems to have literally turned the assembly hall into a prison.
Juxtaposed with the state of dishevelment at the assembly hall—various protest banners, posters, and the body language of the anti-authoritarian students—Yuan documents the scene of history with a slow and high angle shot as the camera pans over the assembly hall with dignity and order. Despite being invited, the artist has positioned himself as a bystander overlooking the scene, detached from the here and now.
Although the imagery of The 561st Hour of Occupation exudes political overtones, Yuan’s attempt to conceal or dilute his own ideology is apparent. It is obvious that Yuan embraces the possible potential or hidden political signifiers that his work carries. But politics are never his subject of preference, at least not for now. What interests the artist is the repressed, ignored, even unknown structures of daily life, often veiled by reality and normality, too quotidian to the point of being taken for granted. Perhaps this is why there is always a discernible sense of anxiety over dwelling in Yuan Goang-Ming’s work when the home and nation may change drastically in the blink of an eye.
--------------
1 Martin Heidegger, “…Poetically Man Dwells…,” in Poetry, Language, Thought, trans. by Albert Hofstadter (New York: Harp & Row, Publishers, 1971), p. 229.
2 Martin Heidegger, “Building Dwelling Thinking” in Poetry, Language, Thought, p. 149.
3 Ibid., pp. 149-51.
4 The exact time when the earthquake took place was 2:46 p.m.
5 Yuan was surprised to find that the nuclear power plant closest to his home in Danshui is merely 19
kilometers away.
6 Despite the beauty of Tokyo Bay, the scenery alludes to Fukushima, where the horrific nuclear disaster took place only 250 kilometers away from the Bay.
7 The Sunflower Movement is a student-led Taiwanese protest movement which opposes any trade deals with Beijing before an official cross-strait watchdog is established. |
