The term “Human Disqualified” is a Japanese expression rendered in Chinese characters. Though a reader of Chinese would more or less understand the phrase, he or she would remain uncertain as to its specific meaning. “Human Disqualified” was originally the name of a novel by the famous Japanese author, Dazai Osamu, translated into Chinese as “losing the right to be human”.

Yuan, Goang-Ming habitually utilizes the creative motif of people with the exhibition on this occasion focusing on “Disqualification”. The term “lost” (disqualified) or “dropped frame” is a technical film editing term. When editing images from a film, the video has first to be transferred from a camera to a computer. During this process if the capability of the computer is poor or the hard drive is insufficiently quick, then it’s possible for frame to be “dropped”. If there are 30 frames a second and of these several are “dropped” then the phenomenon delays or slows down the playing of the piece, making it seem paused and irregular. In this sense, other than meaning “loss of qualification” the term “disqualified” can also be understood in the technical sense above as “an incomplete representation of original materials”.

In this solo exhibition Yuan, Goang-Ming has undertaken a brave experiment and introduced many changes. For the first time he displays digital photographic works, which are displayed in a minimalist way not seen in the past powerful style of Yuan’s earlier work. Used in an environment of multiple fast images they force the audience to reflect on the sensitivity of their perceptions of daily life.

The new digital images displayed at the exhibition were taken by Yuan from a bird’s eye view of a busy area of Taipei city. Around 70 negatives were taken of the same scene during two working weeks, over a two-month period and then composed on a computer as bustling city images. The artist makes use of those parts of each photograph without people or cars, he then works with infinite patience to create flawless traditional photographic works, like putting together a jigsaw, using a computer. In the afternoon the stores are already open, but there are no people, no flow of traffic and no cars parked at the side of the road. We are presented with a seemingly normal though completely silent city.

The computer projection work “City Disqualified-Segment of Ximen District, Taipei”, revolves around the same motif as the digital photographic piece, with the content of the former based on the digital photographic work “City Disqualified - Ximen District, Taipei”. After placing the large 400MB picture into Director software and inputting program settings, the projected picture gives the impression of examining an image through a 100x magnification glass, the details of a city that can never bee seen in their entirety, a scene that appears peaceful and calm.

An installation piece in which motion and multimedia are combined uses transparent printing

ink and luminous powder to make screen prints, the content being a single color image of a city. Around this picture is a kinetic structure made up of machines functioning as printers and scanners etc. like the heavenly light mentioned by Benjamin, a truth that is both distant and near. It is almost as if the scanner scans the picture and having passed through the sensor the image appears, the whole city scene constantly disappearing and appearing, like a lost landscape gradually awoken in the memory.

Since his video projection work “Fish on Dish” at IT Park Gallery in 1992, Yuan, Goang-Ming’s work has been well received and displayed at numerous exhibitions both in Taiwan and overseas. His interactive video piece “Reason for Insomnia”, shown in a solo exhibition at IT Park Gallery in 1998, is still touring major exhibitions overseas since. Yuan does not produce many works because the artist is of self-demanding personality and therefore each piece of his work requires a strong reason and motivation. It is our belief that through the incompleteness in “Disqualified” it is possible to see a miraculous brightness rare to art.