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| 物造物─彭弘智, 林建志, 陳正才三人展 |
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| 專題介紹 Introduction |
中文 |
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Thing-Made Things: Mechanical Images
by Manray Hsu
The idea of "Thing-Made Things" came from recurrent uses by many young Taiwan artists of images reflecting different aspects of modern life and mechanical devices. It is based on an observation that industrialization has not only changed our relationship to the mechanical, but also our views about the relationship. For a long time, people thought of the machinery they made and their lives intertwined with the mechanical as part of divine projects. Things are after all creation of God or gods. Then, also for a long time, people started to think of themselves as the creator of things. God or gods were found dead, or committed suicide, or murdered. It was the age of "Man-Made Things." People created machines to improve or expand the functioning of their bodies, and at the same time, believed in total human control of man-made things and their vicissitudes.
And now, particularly with the advances of information science and biotechnology, we have entered the age of "Thing-Made Things." Sciences, as promoted by the nation-states (with defense systems) and capitalist organizations, claim to be able to remake our lives according to our own planning. Identity, history, perception, knowledge, entertainment, memories, relationships, and health, ironically become contaminated with all sorts of mechanical devices which somehow can no longer find any center of control. As a result, the longed-for contract between human beings and technology becomes ambiguous and precarious. The dream-world of "Man-Made Things" has turned into one of "Thing-Made Things."
Chen Cheng-Tsai's "Moonlight shines in the groves of pines" quotes from a poem, "An Autumn Evening in the Mountains," by Wang Wei of the Tang Dynasty (A. D. 618-907). The viewer is invited to interact with three moon-like objects -- two digital-projected moving images and a convex mirror, along with a candle as a light source. Throughout history, the moon has imbued people with myriad of imagination about life, death, future, past, happiness, etc. The images of the viewer and of the artist are projected in many different ways symbolizing different relationships between reality and unreality, dream and reality, the physical and the metaphysical, ….
Peng Hung-Chih's "Expansion Underground" is the development of a work exhibited in San Francisco earlier this year. The viewer can use a joystick to control a war-play vehicle in a secret room full of toys. The toys of this real-life video game are products made in Taiwan, sold around the world. Clients at the IT Park bar will see the player's game on a monitor just like watching the world cup in any entertaining public spaces around the world. The artist enters the performance as a technician replacing batteries of the war vehicle and keeping the maintenance of the show. The sinister and sometimes cruel treatment of the toys, as well as the artist's random intervention, is intended to reveal the expanded absurdity of the world of "thing-made things."
The three models of Lin Chien-Chih's "Autonomous Organisms" presents a work of pseudo-science displayed in a virtual museum of natural history. An androgynous body is constructed along with explanation of its development and functioning of reproduction. Two self-sufficient bodies are displayed with detailed anatomic diagrams. Using traditional Chinese techniques of illustration, the background "scientific" theory tells a story of how to invent and create an object that will be beyond the control of its inventor/creator. The fantasies of auto-eroticism and self-sufficiency are not limited to the artist, but actually deeply embedded in human imagination.
"Thing-Made Things" is an on-going project that needs further input from other artists and sponsors. Anyway, if the conjecture of this project makes sense at all, there should be indefinite thing-made projections into the future. |
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