text by Yuan Goang-Ming
TOMORROWLAND
A Preface to the Preface
First written in 2018, this artist’s statement has never been published in full. With some minor edits, the text is presented here not only to provide insights to my 2018 solo exhibition, Tomorrowland, but also as an exploration of my overall creative context, including the inception and contemplative junctures of my creativity. I believe this will provide a deeper understanding of the origins and development of my current solo exhibition, Everyday Warfare.
Yuan Goang-Ming, 2023
Contents
Preface
I. Beginning with a Classical Oil Painting
1. The Angelus by Jean Fracois Millet
2. Out of Position
II. In the Name of Art, the Inevitable Rationale
III. Tomorrowland
1. From An Uncanny Tomorrow to Tomorrowland
2. The Dailiness of War, Normalization of Warfare/Everyday Manuever
3. Otherness, Hospitality/The Stranger
IV. Towards Light/ Towards Darkness
1. Begin with a photograph/What do they see in the distance?
2. The Corporeal Sense of Dwelling in “Darkness”
3. A depiction of total darkness?/Towards Darkness
Conclusion
TOMORROWLAND
By Yuan Goang-Ming, 2018
Preface
In my early childhood, when my father was still with us, he would often hum a few bars from Peking opera. It was only when I was older that I learned the opera he most often sang was Silang Visits His Mother. The story is set against the war between the Northern Song and Liao. The Northern Song general, Yang Silang, was captured and betrothed to a Liao princess due to his remarkable bearing. Fifteen years later, circumstances and help from the princess allowed Silang to cross the border under the cover of night to visit his queen mother and siblings, with a caveat to return by sunrise to avoid implicating the princess. Silang succeeded in slipping through the city gates to see his mother, Dowager She, and family. However, his ploy was discovered when he returned. He was charged with fraternizing with the enemy, and narrowly escaped a beheading. The bridge from this classic opera that my father most often hummed was, “I am like a caged bird, unable to stretch my wings. I am like a tiger away from the mountains, alone and suffering. I am like a northbound wild goose, lost and separated from my flock. I am like a dragon in shallow waters, stranded helpless on a sandbank.”
My appreciation was initially confined to the excellent rhyme and parallel construction of these lyrics. That is, until I had an opportunity attend a live performance of this opera with my father at the Armed Forces Cultural Center on Zhonghua Road in Taipei. When Silang finally stood before his mother, he fell to his knees, overwhelmed by the conflicting emotions of romantic and familial love, and the dichotomy of the enemy and the self. Kowtowing thrice, he broke down in tears, lamenting, “Even if I supplicate you ten thousand times, I could never amend my sins…” In that moment, tears streamed down my father’s face. Audience members around us, many around my father’s age, covered their faces and wept too.[1] It was then that I truly understood how this opera resonated with the audiences of that era and their own tragedies. Yang Silang was able to visit his mother after a mere 15 years of separation, while my father endured a 40-year wait for martial law to be lifted before he was finally able to reunite with his only surviving kin, his sister, who was in her twilight years.
At 18 years old, my father embarked on a journey from China to Taiwan aboard a ship, anticipating a brief stay. However, this "temporary" period stretched into six decades. Rebecca Nedostup, an Associate Professor of East Asian Studies at Brown University, addresses this demographic in her speech, "Defining Displacement: A Few Problems in Analyzing Wartime Refugees in China and Taiwan, 1937–1960." She discusses those who landed in Taiwan during the exodus prompted by the civil war between the Nationalists and Communists in 1949, notably including many Chinese military personnel. Initially, this group was politically categorized as "loyalists" and later as "mainlanders" in the cultural geography of Taiwan. Yet, from a sociological standpoint during the Cold War, they were identified as "refugees."[2] According to such classifications, I am a second-generation civil war-era refugee from the significant migration wave of 1949.
Throughout world history, “when the ship sets sail,” often evokes separation and tragedy. This is exemplified by the distressing image of the three-year-old refugee, Alan, whose lifeless body was found washed upon Turkish shores; and by a vessel carrying Rohingya refugees that capsized off the coast of Bangladesh. According to UNHCR statistics, the current tally of displaced peoples due to war or religion now far exceeds World War II figures. In a world that leaves us feeling discouraged and disconcerted, a poetic haven seems ever more elusive. Home has ceased to be a warm and tangible concept.
Since the “City Disqualified” series in 2000, I have attempted to manifest Taiwan as a typical hybrid city that constantly mutates against its unique historical and political background, or to manifest a state of being where Taiwan is impossible to define or locate. “The place of ideal perfection must be elsewhere.” Home has become a fluid and fragile concept. Hence, from 2007 to 2011, I attempted to capture the quotidian nature of “home” through a micro-autobiographical and theatrical approach in the Disappearing Landscape series.
Tomorrowland (2018) continues to explore the themes in An Uncanny Tomorrow (2014), expanding from our current milieu to the world at large. With the resurgence of the Cold War and populist ideologies, the threat of imperialism and terrorism, and drastic environmental changes in the world, a home for tomorrow and into the future is no longer a stable concept. With works that revolve around “daily warfare” and “the dailiness of war,” the Tomorrowland exhibition attempts to create an intertextuality between the works: from the blinding flash of light that symbolizes a nuclear explosion, to air raid drills that continue post-martial law; from a symbol of globalization “non-places,” and the imperial capitalist Disneyland, to transnational migrant workers in search of a better life — all attempt to echo the anxieties and apprehensions of our convoluted world. In retrospect of my earliest video works, the creative core of my current exhibition seems as to have come full circle after 33 years.
In the years since my first video work in 1985, I have contemplated “the possibilities of the image” through image creations, and have experimented with various media in my practice. The works Towards Darkness and Towards Light in the current solo exhibition are my latest creative efforts. A thoroughly dark space and an entirely white space, are both finally interrogations on the essence of the image that also demonstrate the possibilities of “human corporeal perception and experience of the image” and “immersive live exhibition.” If the image is “light” in Towards Light, what would this image become when light is pushed to the extreme without carrying any image or symbol, simply returning to the purest form of light itself? When the impurities of the image are extracted from “light,” how would we view and debate this “pure image”? If the image is “light” in Towards Darkness, do possibilities exist for that image to become an apparition of another image on the “perceptual” and “spiritual” level, in that pitch-dark, netherworldly state where light has been eliminated from the human retinas?
I. Beginning with a Classical Oil Painting
1. The Angelus by Jean-Fracois Millet
I created my first single-channel video work, About Millet’s The Angélus in 1985. From 1985 to 1992, I produced four works using a variety of media and formats to intermittently reinterpret this painting, originally created between 1957 and 1859 by French artist Jean-Francois Millet (1814-1875). At the time, I was moved by the scene of the two peasants who, upon hearing distant church bells, laid down their tools to clasp their hands and bow their heads in prayer. The pastoral landscape thoroughly manifests Heidegger’s phrase “poetically, man dwells” – a harmonious scene of heaven and earth, the sacred and the secular. However, this idyllic scene was unattainable in the society and world that was my milieu at the time. Hence, I photographed the painting in the catalogue, and also shot a video charging with the camera through tall grasses. In the video, the image of The Angelus remains static, accompanied by the sound of distant church bells and interspersed with a few seconds of sound and video of violent thrashing among tall grasses about once every minute. The contrasting and conflicting audio and visuals are interwoven in a looped montage. The work is imbued with a sense of unease and doubt toward the idyllic scene depicted in The Angélus.
2. Out of Position
In retrospect, the majority of my earliest work seemed to revolve around a sense of doubt and unease about images of this beautiful world. My first video installation, Out of Position (1987), was a video sculpture comprised of a cathode-ray tube television tilted at 45 degrees and a pair of legs I cast from my own. On the TV screen was video of a male swimmer moving in a vertical direction, accompanied by a monotonous and repetitive sound of water drops. This was interspersed with images of the following: a child closing their eyes, a plane crash, internal surgery, a space shuttle, a comet, a photograph by Robert Capa of a soldier being shot during the Spanish Civil War, a portrait of a Nazi officer, a mother crying at a child’s grave, the Vietnam War, protest riots, execution by firing squat from 1944, a cremation, unofficial mass execution of Black South Africans. The soundtrack behind these interspersed images was the anti-war song, O Superman (For Massenet) (1981), by artist-cum-musician Laurie Anderson which she wrote against the backdrop of the Iranian Hostage Crisis (1979-81).
Alluding to a classical oil painting like The Angélus seemed par for the course for an art student like me at the time, but my underlying concept was not rooted in the traditions of art history -- About Millet’s The Angélus and Out of Position marked the beginning of my departure from traditional art. Both used the time-based medium of video as a supplementary temporal extension to painting, as well as an experiment and study of new media imaging. Underlying both were a skepticism toward images of a beautiful world, and a longing for Tomorrowland.
II. In the Name of Art, the Inevitable Rationale
At the TED Taipei event organized by the 13th Taishing Art Awards in 2015, I gave a short talk on the creative thought process and transformations for my solo exhibition, An Uncanny Tomorrow. I opened the speech by expressing my views on art and its relationship with society:
My work is fundamentally an inward exploration. This was possibly influenced by my father, who instilled an indelible Confucian philosophy in me from childhood. Put simply, the traditional concept of “cultivating the self, ordering the home, administering the country” means that you have to sort yourself out before you have what it takes to manage your environment. Since I’ve not managed to sort myself out, most of my work has been mired in dealing the political issues in my personal life. The idea of transforming society through art seems to put artists on a high pedestal. This method puts me ill at ease, and I feel thoroughly unqualified to change anyone else when I have not yet had success in changing myself. Basically, I think art is both useless and unnecessary, because whenever I contemplate the function of art, my head starts to ache and art seems further out of reach. It is a little Zen, a certain enlightenment rather than something intellectualized. It is an elusive corporeal experiential realization that further evades us if we try to define it.[3]
An unintellectualized and elusive perceptual experience permeates the majority of my work. This is related to my obsession with Zen and the philosophies of Laozi and Zhuangzi that began in my youth, and stayed with me throughout secondary school and college years to the present. We can often sense something clearly and profoundly but be unable to articulate it in words. For me, that clarity feeling which evades verbalization, is precisely the thing! “The thing” subtly comes into being from our social and environmental milieu.
Some of the works in the 2014 solo exhibition, An Uncanny Tomorrow, seemed to diverge from the concept mentioned above. Hence, in the short talk, I shared some of the creative transformations and similarities in the works The 561st Hour of Occupation and Landscape of Energy.
For instance, the video work The 561st Hour of Occupation regarding the Sunflower Student Movement, began when a graduate student called me from inside the legislature to ask, “Will you be able to film some unique, artistic images that we can use in the English-language version of the Island's Sunrise music video?” As a teacher, I of course agreed to my students’ request. However, I immediately thought of two issues. Firstly, there are so many cameras and documentary filmmakers onsite, do they still need me there? Secondly, what exactly are “unique, artistic images”? Are all of the footage being taken by the hundreds of cameras at the site, ordinary and unartistic? Many of our students were inside the Legislative Yuan, but to frank, my concern for the students outweighed my concern for the issue itself because these students were too much a part of my life to ignore. Ultimately, I gave them all of the raw footage I shot for use in the Island’s Sunrise music video, which they used at the beginning and end of the video. Later, in response to the exhibition and the curator, I wrestled for days whether to create this work. I ultimately decided to go ahead, for several reasons: First, as a result of my students, this issue reported in the media stood front and center in my life, and pierced through my body. Second, I felt that I could navigate and present this political issue in a non-ancillary way that is not a mere illustration or insert; one that was possibly what the students had described as “unique, artistic images,” representing a personal challenge and breakthrough. Third, these students initially occupied the Legislative Yuan for a better future. They were there for close to a month, making it their temporary abode. Meanwhile police presence circled the legislature outside. This is in line with what I wanted to express in my current exhibition An Uncanny Tomorrow. It is about home, dwelling, and an uncomfortable future.
The other video work Landscape of Energy evolved from the fear and anxiety that our family endured in the aftermath of the 2011 Tokoku Earthquake, when my Japanese wife’s family found themselves trapped in Tokyo as a result of the ensuing transportation disruptions. At that moment, the event pierced through my body, and compelled me to confront it. Having a one-year-old at home, I researched and found that we were only 17 kilometers from the nearest nuclear power plant in Danshui, and that the Presidential Palace was only 23 kilometers away from a nuclear power plant. The entire island of Taiwan seemed to exist within an uncomfortable range.
I had a strong aversion to unequivocally political or economic issue before creating this work and The 561st Hour of Occupation. However, these topics appeared before me and fell within my original creative context, compelling me to create. There was a sense that I was being created rather than the other way around. Of course, I was cautious and had an overwhelming confidence that the works do not become an intellectual or contentious illustration.[4]
Chia Chi Jason Wang felt that Landscape of Energy created a certain surrealism despite its documentary format: “Upon first glance, the viewer feels a sense of privilege in surveying a restricted area. Through the lens, reality appears tamed and collected, but this is in fact an illusion of vision and power. […] These are unmistakably restricted areas from which the public is banned in real life.”[5] A surrealist spectacle is momentarily created when the arenas of nuclear power are surveilled through the lens of an infiltrating camera from above
The soundtrack for The 561st Hour of Occupation features a work that symbolizes the enduring existence of the nation: The National Anthem. I have slowed the playback speed by half, which instantly transforms the legislature into a place of worship, imbued with a sacred and sacrificial atmosphere. Time glides between the past, present, and future, between abundance, decay and the void. The temporal and historical sense created by space also skips forward and back. Within the site of the legislature, which has become prosaic from media overexposure, this ephemeral vista seems to open up another vista that is more tranquil, or more spectacular than the media spectacle.
This spectacular scene, or a sight more spectacular than the media spectacle, is my strategy to disengage from intellectual or issue-based illustration. The execution of this strategy is ersatz alchemy, distilling these objects and events of knowledge, rationale, and contention into a clear, crystalline work of art. This crystal is both multifaceted and transparent, and is not a vehicle for knowledge, but when viewed by the audience, it will refract and reflect their own imagination based on their knowledge of this event. Only the transparent crystallization distilled in the name of art able to ignite this imagination, rather than documents full of information. This is the inevitable rationale and irreplaceability of using art as a form of expression.
III. Tomorrowland
1. From An Uncanny Tomorrow to Tomorrowland
The world is a theme park.
In 2014, I bought a nearly derelict property on the hills of Danshui, and gradually constructed my own home. Over time, the derelict property also began to dwell in my heart. From the vantage point on the hills, the urban sprawl of Taipei extended rapidly. On my way home from Taipei, I would always encounter part-time workers holding up large signs announcing new residential developments: “Morocco,” “Bali,” “New Yokohama,” or “New Pudong.” The nomenclature of these new constructions reveals a prevailing mindset in Taiwan, of a certain subconscious desire to “de-localize,” of a typical hybridized city that is constantly changing its appearance, or rather, a state of being unable to self-define, or self-locate. We are here, but choose to ignore the reality of being here, creating a type of “existential forgetting.”
In, “AsiaWorld,” the last chapter in Theater of Cruelty: Art, Film, and the Shadow of War, Ian Buruma quotes renowned Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas as saying, “We could say… that Asia as such is in the process of disappearing, that Asia has become a kind of immense theme park. Asians themselves have become tourists in Asia.“[6] He also quotes Japan scholar and cultural commentator Donald Richie, who once quipped: “Why build a Tokyo Disney? Isn’t the entire city already like Disneyland?”[7]
Heidegger’s concept of Dasein is about the human being and its place in the world, and relevant to the idea of dwelling. Dasein unifies the human world and the natural world both spiritually and philosophically. True Dasein is rooted in the existence of place.[8] In contrast, “non-place” is a condition that geographer Edward Relph believes is silently speading across the contemporary world. It is characterized by an inability to establish a genuine connection with a locality because this new non-place does not allow anyone to be an existing insider.
In Place: A Short Introduction, Tim Cresswell writes: “An inauthentic attitude toward places is transmitted through a number of processes, or perhaps more accurately ‘media,’ which directly or indirectly encourage ‘non-place,’ that is a weakening of the identity of places to the point where they do not only look alike but feel alike and offer the same bland possibilities for experience. (Relph, 1976: 90)”[9]
In contrast to “place,” we simultaneously face increasing numbers of “non-places” in the contemporary world. French anthropologist Marc Augé defines the differences between space and place in his book, Non-places: Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity. “Space” is a neutral concept. It is a basic ability of human cognition as well as a method of abstract comprehension of the world. However, people who live in a space fill it with meaning, perceive traces of others within the space, and shape it into an environment suitable for themselves, making it a “place” that exists interdependently with themselves. In response to “When do I feel at home?”, he refers to “Vincent Decombe’s proposed definition of the notion of ‘rhetociral country’ based on an analysis of the Combray ‘philosophy’ or rather ‘cosmology’ (from Marcel Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past), Augé quotes:
Where is the character at home? The question bears less on a geographical territory than arhetorical territory (rhetorical in the classical sense, as defined by the rhetorical acts: plea, accusation, eulogy, censure, recommendation, warning, and so on). The character is at home when he is at ease in the rhetoric of the people with whom he shares life. The signs of being at home is the ability to make oneself understood without too much difficulty, and to follow the reasoning of others without any need for long explanations. The rhetorical country of a character ends where his interlocutors no longer understand the reasons he gieves for his deeds and actions, the riticisms he makes or the enthusiasms he displays. A disturbance of rhetorical communication makrs the crossing of a frontier, which should of course be envisaged as a border zone, a marchland, rather than a clearly drawn line.[10] (p. 179)
Augé further posits:
If Decombes is right, we can conclude that in the world of supermodernity people are always, and never, at home: the frontier zones or “marchlands” he mentions no longer open on to totally foreign worlds. Supermodernity (which stems simultaneously from the three figures of excess: overabundance of events, spatial overabundance, and the individualization of references) naturally finds its full expression in non-places. Words and images in transit through non-places can take root in the – still diverse – places where people still try to construct part of their daily life.[11]
Augé defines ”non-places” thus: “If a place can be defined as relational, historical and concerned with identity, then a space which cannot be defined as relational, or historical, or concerned with identity will be a non-place.”[12] “Non-places” establish a relationship between humans and their environment with “words” as a medium. He cites cinemas, refugee camps, supermarkets, airports and highways as examples of these spaces. They can be continually renovated or relocated, but the texts are a crucial point of reference for these non-places. For instance, one simply follows signs to the cashier to complete a purchase on entering a supermarket; one passes through immigration with the passport at the airport; follow road signs on the highway to reach one’s destination, etc. Therefore, “The space of non-place creates neither singular identity nor relations; only solitude and similitude.”[13] It neither makes room for history, nor provide shelter for any organic society.[14]
“Non-places” are prevalent under globalization. People pass through and linger alone in these ahistorical spaces. In contrast, the general living conditions in Taiwan, as previous mentioned, seem indifferent to “non-places,” since “the ideal place is elsewhere, and not here.” There is even an undercurrent of “de-localized places. Under this spatiotemporal backdrop, our sense of place and concept of “home” becomes ever more fluid and fragile, and our memories of the cities we live in become increasingly blurred.
“Tomorrowland” continues on themes explored in the 2014 solo exhibition, “An Uncanny Tomorrow.” Uncanny is the operative word in the title “An Uncanny Tomorrow.” The world “uncanny” was first used in academic writing through the work of Austria psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, in its German form, unheimlich. The root word heim refers to “home.” Hence, anxiety and unease is related to “home.” When this “unease” is extended into society and the state, it becomes a certain ambient fear – an allusion to the essay, “Ambient Fears,” by Australian scholar Nikos Papastergiadis in response to terrorism and contemporary political phenomena. Papastergiadis cites French philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy in positing that this has become a characteristic of contemporary life, a visual presentation of a certain condition: war may arise out of nowhere, division will occur everywhere, aggression, civil violence, and crude barbarism that imitates ancient divine violence. War is not contained to one place and may flare up anywhere. They may stop at any moment, yet never truly come to an end.[15]
On September 14, 2014, both The Telegraph and the BBC’s Chinese-language website reported that, while attending a commemoration in Redipuglia, Italy, marking the centenary of the outbreak of World War I, Pope Francis remarked: “Even today, after the second failure of another world war, perhaps one can speak of a third war […]” Indeed, the number of refugees globally has far surpassed the scale of World War II.
On the evening of November 13, 2015, in the aftermath of terrorist attacks in Paris, then-French President François Hollande declared that France has entered a state of war. On the premise of protecting the people within the national borders, there is also an implication that citizens of France are also subjected to the political identity of “subversive enemies. Today, “war” has become a part of daily life. “The dailiness of war,” and “daily warfare” may seem distant from Taiwan, but the annual Wan-An Air Raid Drills -- held each year across Taiwan and its outer islands of Penghu, Kinmen, and Matsu since 1978, continues to be conducted in every municipality each spring. Through Martial Law has been lifted since 1987, the bustling city of Taipei momentary becomes a deserted ghost town when the siren sounds. We are reminded for 30 minutes each year of the threat of war.
The eponymously video installation work, Tomorrowland, in the exhibition continues in the trajectory of the work Dwelling from the previous exhibition. It expands from the themes of home and dwelling to the world we live in. It is a world that depresses and perplexes us with its overwhelming number of refugees, resurgence of Cold War and populism, the threats of colonialism and terrorism, etc. It begs the question: When and where will Tomorrowland come into being?
The scene moves from a bourgeois living room to a theme park symbolizing carefree joy. On screen is the image of a deserted theme park. There is a Cinderella Castle-type structure in the far distance. It seems like a theme park that has yet to open. Advertising banners in the foreground flutter in the wind, which also stirs and lifts the garbage on the ground. An occasional bird circles in the sky above. A minute later, the theme park inexplicably explodes.
2. The Dailiness of War, Normalization of Warfare/Everyday Manuever
News report I: World War III? Japanese tourists alarmed by Wanan Air Raid Drill in Taipei.[16]
News report II: The streets of Kaohsiung were evacuated yesterday (April 21, 2016) during the Wanan Air Raid Drill No. 39. Bystanders reported an unexpected sighting of a dinosaur brazenly jaywalking, which they filmed and uploaded to a Facebook group under the caption “Dinosaurs shouldn’t be exempt from the drill!” Police investigations of surveillance footage revealed that the dinosaur was a beverage shop employee who donned the dinosaur costume as a prank.[17]
In addition to cosplaying as a dinosaur, there was also a couple who reportedly took advantage of the deserted city to snap a photo of the woman lying spread-eagle in the middle of the road. For the youth of Taiwan, this cinematic vista of an evacuated city is familiar and ordinary. They regard the vacant cityscape a perfect backdrop for selfies. Similar news items abound, and the jarring drone of sirens should be equally familiar to the Japanese, who often conduct various drills in preparation for earthquake and fire emergencies, though on a smaller scale limited to schools, buildings, and small districts. The astonishing scene of the whole of Taipei evacuated would come as a surprise even to the Japanese. With the exception of South Korea, none of Taiwan’s neighboring countries conduct exercises similar to the Wanan Air Raid Drill that clears all city streets on Taiwan and outlying islands.
The work Everyday Maneuver primarily documents the day of the drill, between 1:30pm and 2:00pm, using drones to film the five main streets in Taipei from above in a bird’s-eye view angle. These five angles are edited into a short film where the camera moves in straight lines, as though scanning the city in surveillance. As soon as the siren sounds, the bustling City of Taipei instantly transforms into a ghost town, with the roadside filled with parked car. This seemingly surreal spectacle is actually an authentic scene of Taipei’s cityscape.
In 2001, I created the “City Disqualified” series in which I took hundreds of photos taken around Ximending and digitally removed people and vehicles in post-processing to create a two-dimensional photographic work. With the aerial video work, Everyday Maneuver, however, I intentionally retained the pedestrians, cars, and police presence. Despite the similarities in form, the content of the two works is entirely different. “City Disqualified” interrogates globalization, urbanity, and living; while Everyday Maneuver addresses the threats of daily warfare and the aftermath of the Cold War.
3. Otherness, Hospitality/The Stranger
On any given weekend or holiday at the Taipei Main Station, the main concourse hall is filled migrant workers, seated or lounging on the floor. Or, walking through the Taiwan’s Chungli Station, the sights, smells, and sounds that fill your senses will seem to transport you to the train station platform of a Southeast Asian country.
Eid al-Fitr, one of the most important holidays in the Muslim world, is celebrated each year on the first day of the month of Shawwal in the Islamic calendar, to mark the end of the Ramadan month of fasting. Muslim migrant workers gather on this day in celebration. They flood the Taipei Train Station, dressed in traditional Islamic clothing, bringing authentic dishes from their respective Southeast Asian countries, and feast in a grand celebration on the floor of what Marc Augé would consider a definitive “non-place” of the Taipei Main Station concourse lobby.
Following the “City Disqualified” uninhabited series of 2001, I have wanted to use a similar technique of time-lapse to film and assemble a photograph of Ximending bustling with people and vehicles. I never began this project because I felt that the concept and approach was too similar, in addition to being too time consuming. In 2016, I was astounded when I saw the surreal images online and in news reports, of migrant workers gathered and seated on the train station lobby in celebrating Eid. The train station lobby was bursting at the seams. This image compelled me to contemplate how these "out-of- place” migrant workers had transformed the Taipei Main Station from a “space” into a “place.” Hence, I submitted an application for a permission to film the Eid al-Fitr celebrations at the concourse lobby the following year. I was unprepared for the response from the Taipei Main Station. All of the available space in the lobby had been rented to the Japan Tourism Association for the day, and the Taipei Tourism Bureau will organize an outdoor “2017 Eid al-Fitre Celebration” in the adjacent Travel Plaza. Whether this was a coincidence or meticulous planning by the Taipei City Government, my observations on the day was that only a few migrant workers visited the Travel Plaza festivities. They still preferred the “place” of the concourse lobby. They filled the corridors, nooks and crannies not occupied by the Japan Tourism Association, or rather, they “encircled” the Japan Tourism Association booths.
According to 2017 Department of Labor statistics, the migrant worker population in Taiwan stood at around 600,000 people. This figure has surpassed the number of indigenous peoples in Taiwan to become another major ethnic group. This new ethnic group essentially endures loneliness, discrimination, and unreasonable working conditions in Taiwan, including unequal pay for equal work, restricted mobility, and exploitation by intermediaries, etc. According to Son You-Liam’s thesis in “Exploitation in Mobilizing: The Analysis of Foreign Worker Issues in Taiwan,” “the majority of migrant workers, a dearth of viable work in their home countries compel them to leave as a necessary means to support themselves and improve their family finances.” (Chang Chin-fen, 2011: 386) However, a study of foreign labor policies in Taiwan and other countries, the mobility of laborers not only involves economic and diplomatic relations between nations. Many laborers rely on intermediary mechanisms for the opportunity to migrate. The experiences of various nations leads us to the conclusion that: mobility is the beginning of exploitation.”[18] Under what conditions would they be willing to endure the exploitation of migration and leave their homes for employment? Of course, a main component is the possibility of changing their circumstances through mobility. Change is not possible without mobility. This presents an inevitable dilemma.
Returning to the 2017 Eid al-Fitr at the Taipei Main Station. The city government and the station shrewdly rented the hall to the Japan Tourism Association, but forced into unoccupied spaces, the migrant workers’ unintentionally surrounded all of the booths, making it difficult for visitors to approach the booths without walking across the bodies and food on the floor. A look back on the Taipei Main Station response over the years to migrant workers gathering in the concourse on weekends and holidays, these have ranged from a tacit approval, to increased police presence to maintain order, to assistance from volunteers. When public complaints were made against migrant workers occupying public spaces, the station used retractable barriers to demarcate areas for foot traffic, and installed signage to prohibit organized gatherings with violators subject to penalties and escorted from the premises. Full access was granted again in 2016, followed in 2017 by the move to the adjacent Travel Plaza, on the premise that the entire lobby had been rented by the Japan Tourism Association. It is clear that the Taipei Main Station and Taipei City Government has continued to pendulum between “ethics” and “law” in the conundrum of managing “hospitality.”
In his book, The Other, Academia Sinica scholar Lee Yu-Cheng writes thus:
As early as the 1980s and 1990s, Julia Kristeva had been analyzing the roles of the stranger; Jacques Derrida also repeatedly discussed ways of hosting and providing “hospitality.” Emmanuel Lévinas expounded on the responsibilities of the self toward the Other; while Jürgen Habermas advocated inclusiveness. These discourse and ideologies did not randomly emerge, but had a basis in reality and ethical concerns, namely the immigration challenges faced by European societies in the past two to three decades. The economic downturn and high unemployment in recent years have compelled segments of the population – particularly politicians – to look for scapegoats, Migrant workers and immigrants were their primary targets. This rhetoric has led to various forms of ant-immigration activities, a rise in extremist right-wing nationalist parties, and neo-Nazi movements. Anti-immigration xenophobia reveals that the specter of fascism still persists in the hearts of some. The painful memory of sanguinary events in recent history, many thinkers have simultaneously come to the fore, writing extensively in attempts to find solutions to the predicament through various discourses.” [19]
The terminology of “hospitality” frequently appears in the writings of Derrida published in the 1990s. This term, along with concepts of cosmopolitanism and forgiveness, constructed a discourse of Otherness that both provided an analysis of traditional cultural concepts and an acute critique of the status quo. “True hospitality is an unconditional acceptance of the other, embracing the infinite possibilities and inherent risks that come with acceptance. From a perspective of unconditional hospitality, Derrida points to the limitations of Kant’s cosmopolitan idealism to explore the development of a new alternative vision of cosmopolitanism.”[20] To quote Ali Akay, from his essay, “War and Multitude”: “This is a hospitable and gifting world that demands and supports a community through an opposition to racism and nationalism. This attitude fits into the appeal for “cosmopolitanism,” and posits a critique against “globalism.”[21]
Hospitality toward the Other seems to be conditional. Derrida believed that after the French Revolution, French policies toward political refugees were more liberal than that of other European countries. But there were reasons for this openness. “Strictly speaking, the impetus governing this policy of openness toward foreigners was never the rules of ethics or hospitality. Since the mid-18th century, comparative birth rates in France had been in decline. Clearly, economic reasons allowed France to be more liberal in regards to immigration. When the economy is thriving and labor is required, people are less captions in their political and economic motives. (Derrida 2001: 10) ”[22]
In the treatment of these foreigners, there is a complex interplay of contradictions in terms of conditions, risk and assimilation processes. “According to Derrida’s perspective, culture is a product of tensions and conflicts between heterogeneities – what he describes as a struggle between conflicting impulses of ‘hospitality’ and ‘colonizing the Other.’ Every culture has an inherent capacity for hospitality (accepting the Other unconditionally), with a simultaneous urge to colonize or assert dominance over the Other (restricting their actions to assert dominance of the host). There is no definitive solution to this tension. Derrida also believes that unconditional hospitality is not possible. However, he also asserts that when the principles of hospitality are lost, any semblance of fairness and justice will also cease to exist. (Derrida).”[23]
Taiwan has always been a multiethnic society of immigrants. However, the surge in the population in recent years, which has become a significant and undefined group, it is imperative that we acknowledge this and learn way of being hospitable.
I spent every weekend and holiday in the latter half of 2017 exploring places frequented by migrant workers. Besides the Taipei Main Station and neighboring places of worship, I also visited Taoyuan and Chungli train stations, as well as the Plaza One Building and Plaza One in Taichung, etc. Through my observations and interviews, I realized that they did not gather every weekend or holiday, but they would congregate at the aforementioned locations in large numbers on the second Sunday of each month. Sundays are the most common day-off among migrant workers; a majority do not have Saturdays off. Furthermore, the second Sunday of each month is payday. On that Sunday, their presence at these meeting points is especially noticeable, especially at the Chungli Train Station.[24] They have a lot to accomplish on this one day, which they can accomplish efficiently and cheaply in Chungli. These tasks include upgrading their mobile phones; sending parcels at the post office; purchase SIM cards, daily necessities, and clothing and accessories that suit their taste and budget. Afterwards, they meet their friends for meals, karaoke, or drinks in the afternoon; perhaps go to motels with their lovers in the evening; before returning to their work stations. A row of advertising banners can be seen outside the train station, touting “3 hours stay for 500”, written in four languages.
After four months of recording and testing of different modes of transportation and locations, my final set up used a high-speed camera shooting 1200 frames per second, to film trains for the 5 to 8 seconds as they pulled into the platform. I captured the scene using a hand-held, ultra-bright spotlight, through the train window, aimed at passengers on the platform. The recording, made at a hyper high speed as the train moved, glided over the unfamiliar faces and figures that seemed to be statues momentarily crystalized. The spotlight imparted a sense that they were actors upon a stage. As the frame moves slowly from right to left, these also resemble a series of portraits. In that moment in the limelight, the clear facial features and silhouettes of each passenger compel us to acknowledge their presence.
IV. Towards Light/ Towards Darkness
1. Begin with a photograph/What do they see in the distance?
The work Towards Light (2018) was primarily inspired by a black-and-white historical photograph taken in 1951. I first encountered this photo while in college in the 1980s, and it left a profound impression. This image appeared on screen while I was conducting online research un 2015, and once again triggered deep contemplation. Out of curiosity, I asked people under 40 years of age what they thought of this photo. The majority of them saw, as I did in my youth, a photo taken by the sea, on a beach with people wearing sunglasses and sitting in loungers. But we were all puzzled as to what they were looking at in the distance.
The photo captures around 16 wooden beach loungers in profile, neatly arranged on a flat surface. The horizon line in the distant background seems to indicate the sea. The seats are filled, but only by men, all of whom are wearing oversized sunglasses. They gaze forward in a seemingly relaxed pose, but the object of their gaze to the right of the photo is out of frame. What is actually in the distance entirely contradicts ideas of leisure and entertainment. What is in the distance is not a beautiful landscape or entertaining event, but Operation Greenhouse, code name “Dog” -- the first-ever nuclear test, conducted pm April 18, 1951 in the South Pacific, on Parry Island in the Enewetak Atoll of the Marshall Islands[25], observed by senior US Military officers. They are wearing, not sunglasses, but safety goggles to protect their eyes against the devastating flash of the nuclear explosion.
In our contemporary milieu, war is no longer solely physical, but occurs in the quotidian, fought on the economic, political, and religious fronts. Nuclear weapons, the embodiment of total annihilation, has persistently remained a threat of devastation since the US dropped the world’s first and only nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and August 9, 1945, thus ending the Second World War. The world seems to have been engaged in a state of war, from the Cold War era to present-day North Korea, and China’s DF-21 ballistic missiles aimed at Taiwan, etc.
This haunting historical photograph, with the bright nuclear flash off camera, has long captivated and confounded me, like an unsolvable riddle. This “deadly light” stands in contrast to the life-giving radiance of the sun. Energy can be simultaneously good and bad, visible or invisible. I explore this in My 2014 work, Landscape of Energy, using a Drone Fly cam and Cable cam to create a “scanning” effect.[26] The camera departs from a nocturnal forest and travels in straight lines over derelict houses in Taichung, Taiwan; traversing the skies over an elementary school in Lanyu, a nuclear waste facility, the sea of Lanyu, the tourist beach near the nuclear power plant in Nanwan, Pingtung, the mock control room inside the third nuclear power plant, the then-largest Agogo Garden in Asia, and Tokyo Bay in Japan. The images capture visible realities, but the method of presentation evokes a chilling desolation, as though portending wastelands of the future.
Inspired by this haunting historical photo, I continued my exploration of the theme of “energy” in my 2017 work, Towards Light. I wanted to explore alternative methods of presenting the bright light absent from the photo, and attempted to recreate and reconnect the image with the uncomfortable experience of the officers in 1951, sitting in comfortable lounge chairs as they observed the discomforting intense light
Images are fundamentally “light.” We see images because of light, and images are made visible by light. What happens when the intensity of light is pushed to an extreme, when the light is not a vehicle for image but is the image itself? The work Towards Light aims to explore “a sensory experience of intense light in an interior space” that is rare in human visual experience. It may simultaneously resemble an experience of heaven or an experience of violent destruction.
A hand sketched replica of the photograph is hung on the exterior wall of the entrance to the work. The interior is a white space measures approximately 9 meters long, 6.6 meters wide, and 4.4 meters high. Six white wooden loungers similar to the 16 in the photo used by the U.S. military officers observing the nuclear test. A timer-controlled fog machine fills the floor space with fog, and each point of intersection between the walls, floor and ceiling are curved to create a shadowless space similar to that in a photographic studio. On the wall directly opposite the entrance, there is a 16,000-watt searchlight. This light is illuminated for 3 seconds at irregular intervals of 20, 30, or 40 seconds, creating a light installation that alternates between completely darkness and extreme brightness.
2. The Corporeal Sense of Dwelling in “Darkness”
In contrast to “bright light,” the idea of “darkness” has always occupied a place of interest in my creative context, as evident in The Moving Luminous Square (1996), Scream, therefore I am (1998), Human Disqualified (2000), Disappearing Portrait (2011), and the four-channel video installation Before Memory (2011), etc. In all of these works that interpreted the concept of “darkness” through a variety of forms and content, phosphorescent powder was a key component with the exception of Before Memory, which utilized video images. Before Memory is a large-scale video installation with four projections. When the viewer enters this space, they will see the four large-scale projections in the space that surrounds them. The four images simultaneously present images and sound, or complete darkness. The images projected are primarily nocturnal scenes of the sea, forest, and shrubs, as well as daytime scenes of wastelands, scenes from a home, and flashes of light. Immersed in this exhibition space, the viewer is presented with four projected images that move between distant and close, circling, or up and down, and between flashes of light and total darkness, all interspersed to evoke deep-seated perceptual memories.
Five to ten seconds of “utter darkness” periodically occurs in the installation space for the work Before Memory. This state of complete darkness is accomplished using a specifically designed device that is synchronized to cover the projector. Within this pitch darkness, indistinct but audible murmuring sounds emanate from the speakers – the subjects of the murmurings include my artist’s statement from my first solo exhibition in 1992 and letters I wrote to my two-year-old daughter and my late father.
When a viewer is located in a state of total darkness, their senses of sight, direction, and balance begin to fail. Seldom used corporeal perceptions such as auditory, olfactory, and tactile senses are reflexively amplified. The intention is to bring together corporeal perceptions within this space to explore ways in which the body within this cave-like darkness responds to a space devoid of sensory perceptions beyond the sound of indistinct murmurs; to listen for pure corporeal perceptions within this darkness that approaches a primal state of being.
The importance of the body in grasping the perceptual world has been explained by French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908–61) through a phenomenological perspective that describes a return to the essence of objects and events through the body’s perceptual senses. To paraphrase his example of “the experience of a cube”: our understanding of the concept of a cube is that it has six sizes. This concept is informed by knowledge, even though our visual experience of the cube is only three sides at a time. We cannot see all six equal sides of a cube. However, by moving around, or by physically handling the cube, we are able to fully grasp this object. In other words, the unity of an object is understood through our corporeal experience. The body enables our perspective of the world.
My work has always been concerned with this condition of chaotic perception on the peripheries of external experience. I feel that insights about this condition can be sought and found within darkness.
Within the context of my oeuvre, Towards Darkness (2018) is an attempt to push the darkness to an extreme.
3. A depiction of total darkness?/Towards Darkness
Beginning with my 2011 solo exhibition “Disappearing Landscape”, my focus began to shift away from “the relationship between images and spaces”. The scenes within my images began to resemble film sets. The majority of the shooting locations were everyday realities from my home life. My residence became the film set, and this film set seemed like scenes from a stage play. I have always been concerned with and interested in the possibilities for expanding “imagery” to incorporate theater and performance, as well as corporeal experiences of perception and sound within the total darkness in my work Before Memory, I conceived of the concept for Towards Darkness in 2014, and began to execute the idea in 2017. This work, alongside the work Towards Light, illustrate my perspectives the possibilities for imagery, corporeal perceptions of dwelling in darkness/light, immersive theater, and live exhibition. These represented a completely new creative experience for me as an artist.
As the title suggests, Towards Darkness is a work constructed on a condition of complete darkness. Conceptually, the work leans toward experiential or immersive theater, but is difficult to categorize as it is not especially theatrical. It also approaches the form of live exhibition, through it also includes elements of performance or action-on-command. It is not so much behavioral art, nor is it exactly stage performance or environmental art, but has elements of all of the above. The work attempts to integrate the live performance, corporeality, sensory perception, and command-action (performance) absent from contemporary art within the gallery or museum, and to re-contemplate the relationships between viewing and memory, the body and the senses, and everyday warfare,” etc.
The all-black interior space of the work measures 8.5 meters long, 9 meters wide, and 5 meters high. Up to four audience members are admitted in each session, along with four guides who lead them into this pitch-darkness with gentle, steady gestures. At the appropriate moment, the guide would release the hold on the viewer or guide the viewer through gentle touch to a different area of the exhibition. The viewer will hear the sound of dripping water originating from three custom-built water droplet devices installed at a height of two meters. Viewers will feel, and hear someone flipping pages of a book and writing near them, and sometimes the sound of murmuring around them. They will see matches suddenly and momentarily igniting to their left or right, above them or on the ground. When the matches alight, they can faintly discern partial forms of Japanese colonial era soldiers wearing samurai swords, or of contemporary ROC army recruits, and a man in 1950s dress, etc. Since the light from the ignited match is brief, these albeit actual images appear illusionary and ghostly, emerging at times to the left or to the right, at times near or at a distance, As the viewers’ pupils adjust to the darkness, a faint light comes on to reveal around 40 people standing against the wall, each with their hand raised and finger pointing at the audience member. This scene of people pointing is a continuation of the three-channel video installation work Indication (2014), replaced with 40 live participants simultaneously pointing at the four viewers present. The act of a hand raised and pointing resolutely forward, has many connotations: it could represent accusation or indicate direction, it could cast blame or identify, or could mean “you.” Though this gesture has no specific meaning, this body language creates an uncomfortable atmosphere, as though demanding that we admit to some fault, mistake, or crime, etc.; or forcing an introspection. As the audience attempts to get a closer look, the faint light switches off, plunging them into total darkness again. At this moment, the audience will sense the people in the space moving around at an increasing pace. Sometimes in stopping in synchrony. A voice begins to hum the melody of “Are You Sleeping” and more people crowd into the space until 60 people hum in unison. In the final refrain, the four guides sing out the lyrics to “National Revolutionary Song” as the audience members are surrounded by a mob and crowded in, as though they are blocking the path of a group of people. In this bustling motion, an object seemingly of importance is handed to the audience member, then gradually the footsteps subside and the crowd loosens, until all is stilled. Suddenly, a bright light illuminates the white, foggy, shadowless room for three minutes, then darkness again ensues. This is followed by a warm sunset-like glow that permeates the entire fog-filled space where only the four audience members remain. In this steady golden glow, the audience members will recall the document they were handed and begin to read. After two minutes, members of staff will raise the curtain to reveal the exit, marking the conclusion of the 15-minute experience.
The crux of Towards Darkness comes from the work Diaspora. In the process of the experience, the jostling audience member and the physical touch are all symbolic of a certain “standing in the way of people boarding a ship and being pushed onto the ship while still contemplating whether to be on that ship,” or “trying desperately to board a ship that is already at capacity.” The imagery is reminiscent of an interview in Lung Ying-Tai’s book Big River Big Sea, with a Taiwanese Indigenous person from the Puyuma tribe, Wu Ah-Chi. Wu was deceived by the Kuomintang in Taiwan to board a ship docked at Kaohsiung harbor, bound for the battlefields of the Chinese Civil War. He was subsequently captured and served in the People’s Liberation Army with his weapon aimed toward his homeland. He spent 50 years in mainland China. When the author asked him to recount the moment do he considered the most tragic in his life, Ah-Chi responded, “The moment the ship set sail from Kaohsiung Harbor.”[27]
In the course of world history, the imagery of “the moment the ship set sail” often evokes tragedy, as evidenced in recent events involving Syrian or Rohingya refugees. Similarly, the book's second chapter recounts the 1949 journey of Chinese refugees to Taiwan: “We will go to that place, Taiwan, to take shelter from this storm – not foreseeing that this ‘storm’ would last over 60 years…
The large ships were unable to dock – smaller vessels jostled and collided as they ferried troops and their families from shore to ship in a chaotic scene. Like spiders, would-be passengers clambered up rope ladders up to the boat. Those who lacked strength or lost their grip would fall into the sea. “They fell, screaming, into the water like dumplings into broth,’ Meijun said. The sound of cannon fire loomed nearby, sending the crowd into a panicked stampede. Some of the small boats capsized, some neared the ship but fell behind as the ship began to depart. The water in the harbor bobbed with faces screaming for help that would never come, while those on the pier desperately cried to heaven for mercy.
[⋯] The heads of people struggling bobbed on the surface of the water, their eyes wide and mouths gaping in utter terror, but you cannot hear their guttural screams of desperation -- History is often silent. Countless suitcases floated on the turbid, oil-stained sea.”[28]
In the thoroughly dark space, harmonic voices singing a song adapted from the French folk song “Frere Jacques” can be heard. The original French lyrics describe morning bells and a sleeping Brother Jacques, whose name becomes Jakob in the German version, and John in the English lyrics below:
Are you sleeping, are you sleeping, Brother John? Brother John?
Morning bells are ringing! Morning bells are ringing! Ding, dang, dong. Ding, dang, dong.
The same melody has also been adapted and incorporated by renowned composer Gustav Mahler into a funeral march that oscillates between somber mourning and light mockery for the 3rd Movement of his Symphony No. 1, “Titan.”[29] The musical allusion to this song may have been an influence of the Bohemian-born Jewish heritage of Maher, who’s characteristic style melds nostalgia for 17th-century pastoralism with fin-de-siècle panic and angst.
Lyrics for a temporary national anthem for the Republic of China were once written to the melody of “Frère Jacques." In 1926, during the Northern Exhibition period, Liao Qianwu, an officer from the Whampoa Military Academy, adapted this melody into the "National Revolutionary Song” as the Academy’s anthem, and then a temporary national anthem. However, its status was short-lived, [30] fading with the reformation of the Nationalist government.
Overthrow powers, overthrow powers,
End warlords' reign, end warlords' reign,
Fight for our cause, fight for our cause,
United we stand, united we stand.
Strive in revolution, strive in revolution,
Fight with our might, fight with our might,
Victory comes, victory comes,
Sing joyfully, sing joyfully.
In the work Towards Darkness, this melody begins with the soft humming of four lead vocalists, who are joined by 8 actors and exhibition employees at a time until the song swells with the voices of 40 participants. In the final round of the refrain, the four original vocalists transition from humming to singing the lyrics to the “National Revolutionary Song.”
Each performance Towards Darkness accommodates four participants, but requires a team of over 70 people. This initiative represents my most radical experiment with "images" to date. While it is an "anti-media" performance, it also relies on new media technology for a seamless experiential process. During the performance, eight staff members wear night vision goggles, and the venue is equipped with high-sensitivity microphones and four wifi night-vision cameras. All 70 staff members are connected to wireless headsets to enable comprehensive oversight from the control. However, despite this high-tech setup, the audience remains unaware of any new media or technological elements.
In Yan Xiao-Xiao's article, "Image Crystals under the Rumination of Life: Yuan Goang-Ming's Radical Experiment in 'Tomorrow's Paradise,'"[31] she wrote:
On the whole, elements of "visible light" are sparingly used in the work Towards Darkness. These include: the momentary flare of matches and the fleeting appearance of actors (dressed in attire from four distinct eras), a dimly lit crowd pointing forward while standing against a wall, an intense flash of light toward the end of the experience, and the soft final glow reminiscent of a sunset. The visibility of these fragmented, ghostly afterimages vary between members of the audience, creating a spectrum of "persistence of vision." Furthermore, a series of auditory cues (sounds of page-turning, writing, muted conversations, match strikes, footsteps, choruses) and tactile interactions (pulling, pushing, letter exchanges), coupled with the intensified corporeal emotional response, such as conjured by the scent of an extinguished match – all combine to build a “mental image.” This mental image leverages the audience's long-term memory and cumulative socio-cultural knowledge which, when combined with the profound emotions and ambiguous message conveyed in the letter, ultimately transforms unseen objects into the "visible," crafting a unique polysemous narrative for individual participant. Thematically linked through independent to this work, the work Towards Light is more often presented as a spatial light installation. Sporadic bursts of intense light in a fog-filled space creates a brief, five-second spatial imagery followed by a residual visual persistence. The metaphor of the intense light is conveyed by a sketch of a photo from a nuclear explosion test visible separated by a wall. The interweaving of the fundamental essence of light and shadow, forms an interplay lights and shadows to create two a dialectic of dual extremes alongside Towards Darkness.
Regarding Towards Darkness, artist Yuan Goang-Ming said his exploration of image-related issues is on-going. Unlike other interactive installations in dark settings, such as Tino Sehgal's "This Variation" (2012), "Towards Darkness" is rooted in a clearly defined script and approaches the performance logic of a stage or cinematic performance. Intriguingly, this piece emerges as Yuan's most narrative-driven yet most 'anti-media' work. Yuan had encountered VR technology during his tenure at Germany's ZKM, but initially eschewed VR as a medium for this image experiment due to technological limitations. Consequently, "Towards Darkness" represents a deliberate departure from media technology, with all auditory, visual, and bodily sensations confined within a spatially and temporally restricted performance. Yet, it is enabled by technologies such as night vision goggles, cameras, infrared lights, and surveillance systems, albeit all of it concealed.
It is clear that the imagery within "Towards Darkness" encompasses four distinct perspectives: the audience's interpretation based on "mental images" (formed without prior knowledge of the process, and subject to individual interactive responses), the staff's internal visualization (informed by their understanding of the process and details), the artist and team's view through the night vision monitors at the exhibition (yielding a negative-like effect), and the images observed by staff through their night vision goggles. This approach challenges the conventional role of visibility in image construction. Yuan's image experiment with "Towards Darkness" disrupt and subverts the classical "visual-perception" paradigm, and explores the possibilities of image subjectivity through alternative modalities.
In the above cited text, author Yan Xiao-Xiao delves into her experience of the work Towards Darkness, particularly its explorations of image formation within the mind. Her analysis of the four types of imagery astutely identifies my experimental objective to evoke mental imagery. Towards Darkness is inherently experimental, and hence, individual perceptions and experiences of the work varies. However, feedback from the majority of participants mentioned the curious sensation of being guided into complete darkness by and relying entirely on unknown, yet reassuring, hands. They likened the experience of being in a dark, damp, safe, and warm space with heightened auditory and perceptive senses to the sensations of a fetus in the womb.
In Conclusion
Between 1989 and 2000, the axis of my artistic endeavors were primarily introspective, exploring personal life experiences and subverting quotidian events and object to forge new observational realities. Works such as Fish on Dish (1992) and The Reason for Insomnia (1998) are exemplary of this phase. However, in 2000, my work extended from personal experiences toward a descriptions of urban life and the state of globalization, as seen in the “Human Disqualified” series which reveals a prototypical, hybridized city shaped by post-colonial and global forces that is unable to describe itself nor to locate itself.
“The ideal place must be elsewhere, and not here.” In Taiwan’s temporal and historical context, our concepts of home have become ever more fluid and fragile, and our memories of the city we live in has become increasingly vague. The concepts of “home” and “identity” are interrogated in the “Disappearing Landscapes” series (2007 – 2011). Straddling the realms of video art and film, this new format presents a dynamic video work that showcases a theatrical quotidian.
From
From Uncanny Tomorrow (2014) to Tomorrowland (2018), my artistic trajectory has come full circle to returns to my first single-channel video work About Millet’s The Angélus (1985) and my first installation work Out of Position (1985). The 33-year journey reflects a persistent exploration of the pervasive sense of unease, anxiety, and doubt toward the world we live in. My contemplation of the “possibilities of the image” has continued throughout this period, and my engagement with various media has been a journey of experimental praxis. The current solo exhibition Towards Darkness and Towards Light represent my ultimate inquiry into the essence of images. If images are light, what becomes of this image under extreme illumination, where light has been stripped of all imagery and signifiers to return to its most fundamental state? How will we regard and critically engage with this “purest form of image” when all of the impurities of images have been removed from “light”?
In this solo exhibition, the works ' Towards Darkness ' and 'Towards Light' represent the zenith of my inquiry into the essence of images. Here, I pose a critical rhetorical question: if images are equated with 'light', what becomes of an image under the most intense illumination, where the light is stripped of all images and symbols, returning to its most fundamental state? This query leads to a deeper examination: when an image is purified from all its 'impurities', how should we perceive and critically engage with this 'purest form of image'? This contemplation is not merely about the visual aspect of images but probes into their existential and ontological dimensions in our increasingly image-saturated world."
The “Tomorrowland” solo exhibition delves into the “dailiness of war” and “every day warfare,” where the artworks engage in mutual intertextual dialogue. From a blinding light that evokes a nuclear explosion, and air raids drills that have continued post-martial law; to a Disneyland-type theme park that epitomizes globalization, non-places, and colonialization; and the living conditions of migrant workers that weaves in themes of religion and refugee crises, culminating in the 1949-themed piece Towards Black. Finally, all of the preceding elements are synthesized but abstracted from their conventions of space, location, and imagery to revert to a primal, netherworldly condition that encapsulates the worldly phenomena discussed.
This primal condition is difficult to comprehend or identify through rational means. As Gaston Bachelard says, certain images can only appear in its direct truth in the purest sort of phenomenological meditation. [32] Experiences like aimlessly drifting in the sea or venturing into a black hole, may seem futile. However, in that metaphorical journey into a black hole, we may ultimately distill our essence and reaffirm our existence from an internal, intimate perspective. This concept aligns with Heidegger's inversion of Plato's cave allegory, where darkness symbolizes phenomenon and light represents essence (idea). Heidegger posits that this “forgetfulness of presence” is at the core of Western metaphysics. He draws upon Lao Tzu's idea of “Know the bright, guard the dark” to convey to us that “we dwell in darkness, but in our quest for home, we light candles and seek light, becoming increasingly fixated on the light itself and forgetting that our home is actually in that darkness.” [33]
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[1]A viewing experience similar to mine was described in Big River, Big Sea — Untold Stories of 1949, Lung Ying-Tai, Ink Publishing, July 13, 2015. P. 68–69.
[2]“Defining Displacement: A Few Problems in Analyzing Wartime Refugees in China and Taiwan, 1937–1960,” Rebecca Nedostup, Associate Professor of history of Brown University, lecture given at Academic Seminars for Global Chinese Studies, Center for Chinese Studies, National Central Library, Taipei, Taiwan, on December 17, 2010.
[3] From the TEDxTaipei event "Blowing Up the Living Room to Enable Art to Express Society's Discomfort: Goang-Ming YUAN @TEDxTaipei 2015,” July 29, 2015, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ebE0Qxao-s (accessed on on October 30, 2017).
[4] Ibid. It was Betty Apple who contacted me and invited me to film at the Legislature.
[5] See the Chia Chi Jason Wang essay, “Unpoetically We Dwell: Yuan Goang-Ming’s An Uncanny Tomorrow Solo Exhibition,” (TKG, 2014), p. 2.
[6] Ian Buruma, “Asia World,” reprinted in The New York Review, June 12, 2003. Accessed at https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2003/06/12/asiaworld/.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Tim Cresswell, Place: A Short Introduction, John Wiley & Sons, 2014, p. 76.
[9] Ibid., p. 75.
[10] Descombes, Vincent, Proust, philosophie du roman, Editions de Minuit, 1978, p. 179.
[11] Non-places: Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity, Marc Augé (transl. John Howe), Verso, 1995, p. 78
[12] Ibid.
[13] Ibid., p. 102
[14] Ibid., p. 103
[15] Ravi Sundaram, Dictionary of War, Taipei Fine Arts Museum, 2009, p. 20.
[16] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6R3DJOtgCY (China Times, March 17, 2015), accessed on October 30, 2017
[17] http://www.setn.com/News.aspx?NewsID=140356, (SET News) accessed on October 30, 2017
[18]Son You-Liam, Exploitation in Mobilizing: The Analysis of Foreign Worker Issues in Taiwan, Vol. 2, Issue 2, 2013
[19] Lee Yu-Cheng, The Other, Asian Culture Press, 2012.
[20] Translated from Fuh Shyh-Jen’s essay, “Derrida and ‘Hospitality’”, Chung Wai Literary Quarterly Issue 200601 (Vol. 34:8), National Taiwan University Press, p. 87-106.
[21] Ali Akay, “War and Multitude,” Dictionary of War, Taipei Fine Arts Museum, 2009, p. 150.
[22] Lee Yu-Cheng, The Other, Asian Culture Press, 2012.
[23] Nikos Papastergiadis, “Ambient Fears,” Dictionary of War, Taipei Fine Arts Museum, 2009, p. 28.
[24] There are approximately 108,000 foreign workers based in Taoyuan, representing one-sixth of Taiwan's total foreign worker population, making it the county with the highest number of foreign laborers. On weekends and holidays, these workers can be seen congregating at the Chungli and Taoyuan train stations. Compared to Taipei or Hsinchu, the cost of living is significantly lower in Taoyuan and Chungli, and these two cities are more hospitable to foreign workers. As a result, many foreign workers would travel to Chungli from the Hsinchu Science Park or Greater Taipei areas on their days off.
[25] The United States invaded the Marshall Islands in 1944, and were assigned trusteeship of the islands within the Pacific Islands Trust Territory by the United Nations after World War II. From 1946 to 1968, the U.S. carried out 66 nuclear tests on the islands at the Pacific Test Site. In 1979, the Marshall Islands decided against joining the Federated States of Micronesia, as outlined in a proposed constitution, and instead pursued self-governance and steps towards becoming an independent nation. The Marshall Islands officially declared independence on October 21, 1986, following the signing of the Treaty of Free Association with the United States. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Islands, accessed on Nov. 30, 2023.
[26]Drone Fly cam and Cable cam.
[27] Big River Big Sea, Lung Ying-Tai, Ink Press, 2015, p. 256
[28] Translated from Fuh Shyh-Jen’s essay, “Derrida and ‘Hospitality’”, Chung Wai Literary Quarterly Issue 200601 (Vol. 34:8), National Taiwan University Press, p. 25.
[29] Lu Wen-Yea, Imagery of Worldviews in Mahler's Music, YLib Press, 2014.
[30] Zhang Yu-Kang as quoted in Lu Fang-shang, A History of the Republic, The Commercial Press, 2013, p. 61. “During the Northern Expedition, a song known as the "National Revolutionary Song," which featured lyrics about overthrowing great powers, removing warlords, and fighting for national revolution, was mocked by some as "a variation of a French nursery rhyme!" and criticized as "a distorted revolutionary song that is neither distinctly Chinese nor Western!" Despite this ridicule, the repetitive and simple melody of this revolutionary military song quickly gained popularity and could be heard in even the most remote areas of the country.”
[31] Yan Xiao-Xiao, “Yuan Goang-Ming’s Tomorrowland,” Art Co Monthly and Investment, Vol. 307, April 2018.
[32] Gaston Bachelard, The Poetic of Space, Beacon Press, 1958, p. 233.
[33] Martin Heidegger proposes an alternative interpretation to Plato’s cave allegory in The Essence of Truth: On Plato's Cave Allegory and Theaetetus, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2013. |
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