Image Fever

2024 / 09 / 28 Sat.

2024 / 12 / 29 Sun.

10:00 - 18:00

Curator

Chen Wei-Lun
Artists

Daniel Canogar
Wu I-Yeh
Wu Tzu-An
Li Yi-Fan
Lee Yung-Chih
Musquiqui Chihying
Matthew Griffin
Chuang Pei-Xin
Hsu Zhe-Hao
VR Exhibition

https://mocatpe.tw/art06NffvA
Supervisor

Department of Cultural Affairs, Taipei City Government
Organizers

Taipei Culture Foundation
MoCA TAIPEI
Annual Sponsors

THERMOS
Contemporary Art Foundation
Hui-Neng Chi Arts and Culture Foundation
Royal Inn
Annual Sponsor for Appointed TV/Screen

SONY
Annual Sponsor for Appointed Projector

EPSON
Media Cooperation

Radio Taiwan International
Special Thanks

Taipei Municipal Jian Cheng Junior High School
The University of Queensland Art Museum
l’atelier muxuan

Exhibition Introduction

Before the digital age, French philosopher Jacques Derrida used “Archive Fever” (Mal d’archive) to describe the human drive toward oblivion. He argued that human beings have a strong desire for collecting, preserving, and archiving information and memory. The term “fever,” in this case, suggests a somewhat compulsive and anxious archiving behavior resulting from the fear of forgetting, the longing for connecting with memory, and the struggle between the two—this struggle involves an intricate relationship between interwoven desires, anxieties, power, and technology. However, in unforeseeable ways, the struggle and plundering between oblivion and memory continue to exist through information and data technologies, such as social media, cloud databases, big data, and algorithms. According to the statistics provided by data service companies, including Statista, Hootsuite, and Findstack, nearly 400 million images are uploaded daily to Facebook, Instagram, and other social media platforms. The ever-growing data-driven technologies have repeatedly and strongly demonstrated that the image era has now reached an unprecedented fervent state.

The question of “What is real?” seems irrelevant today. Instead, we should focus on what has been produced by the information deluge that makes it almost impossible to distinguish truth from lies. Modern technology has gradually transformed human beings into technology-driven visual machines. Images have replaced human memories and become ubiquitous in every aspect of everyday life, permeating the interstices of reality. Art historian Johnathan Crary critiques the notion of progress associated with images, questioning their ability to offer satisfaction. He believes that images have not merely destroyed information barriers, controlled our sleep hours and our time to wake up, and invaded the publicness of space and our privacy, but havealso reduced people’s concentration, leading to an inability to concentrate and think. The asymmetrical relationship between image and people exists like a spectre.^[1] Instead of remembering things naturally, people have come to increasingly rely on using images and algorithms to document and manage every detail in life. Thus, we are seeing information overload and excessive archiving on mobile devices and social media; we are also witnessing memes being used for sarcasm and black humor, reflecting trending social phenomena and political events. Additionally, the consumption of internet information as something that is time-sensitive has not only made images a mainstream mode of communication but has also introduced the possibility of bridging the gap between perception and reality. In today’s world, with memory losing its grasp, the dream bird of human beings remains unrealized.^[2]

Image Fever is developed based on the idea of using the internet as a framework for comprehending image, video, and film works. This exhibition features nine artists, including Daniel Canogar, Wu I-Yeh, Wu Tzu-An, Li Yi-Fan, Lee Yung-Chih, Musquiqui Chihying, Matthew Griffin, Chuang Pei-Xin, and Hsu Zhe-Hao. Their works respectively explore the meaning of image conversion between information and images, material and virtuality, fiction and reality in relation to various topics, including individual and collective memory, identity, internet culture, geopolitics, and digital capitalism. It aims to reveal how modern technology shapes human desires and the alienation of human perception resulting from the technologies of image governance.

^[1] In a lecture, Derrida mentioned French actress Pascale Ogier, who starred alongside him in Ghost Dance. In one of the scenes, they were discussing the question of ghosts in an office. When Ogier’s face came onto the screen, staring at him and asking him questions after she had passed away, an asymmetrical gaze emerged as Derrida could no longer look her in the eyes. Derrida used the term “spectre” to describe this subject in the visible yet invisible images. Derrida, Jacques, and Bernard Stiegler (eds.; 2002). “Echographies of television.” Echographies of Television: Filmed Interviews. Cambridge: Polity Press. pp. 29-144, pp. 120-121.

^[2] In “The Storyteller,” Benjamin states that storytelling is the art of converting experiences into others’ memories. The process requires a state of relaxation like sleep, calling this the dream bird that hatches the eggs of experience. However, storytelling has gradually disappeared in modern society due to writing and mass media. The fragmentation of experience also leads to the decreasing exchange of experience. Benjamin, Walter. Illuminations: Essays and Reflections. Trans. Zhang Xudong and Wang Ban. Hong Kong: Oxford UP. pp. 126-127.

LESS

Curator & Artists

Chen Wei-Lun

Daniel Canogar

Lee Yung-Chih

Musquiqui Chihying

Wu I-Yeh

Li Yi-Fan

Matthew Griffin

Hsu Zhe-Hao

Chen Wei-Lun holds an MFA in New Media Art from the Taipei National University of the Arts. Chen mainly engages in topics related to contemporary art, image, media, and popular culture, using research and his practice as curatorial methods. With Taiwan as a base for research, his previous projects drew from his political, media, and cultural background to map out the developmental trajectory of image arts in Taiwan. Chen was a keywords researcher at the “Taiwan Contemporary Art Archive” from 2020 to 2022. In 2019, he was selected for the “Curator’s Incubator Program @ Museums” program by the National Culture and Arts Foundation, and developed the curatorial project, Just what is it that makes today’s homes so different, so appealing? (Hong-gah Museum, 2021). The exhibition received a third-season nomination for the 20^thTaishin Arts Award. He was a member of the curatorial teams for various projects, including Media Archaeology: Indescribable Mark of Life (Art Museum of National Taiwan University of Art, 2017) and Notes for Tomorrow—Southern Taipei Version (TheCube Project Space, 2022). He also co-curated the 2023 Green Island Human Rights Art Festival—Listening to the Overtones of Fissures.

Born in Madrid in 1964 to an American mother and Spanish father, Daniel Canogar’s life and career have bridged between Spain and the U.S. Photography was his earliest medium of choice, although he soon became interested in the possibilities of the projected image and installation art.

His recent public art installations with LED screens include Pulsation at Nike’s World Headquarters (Oregon, 2023), Brushstrokes at DeKa Bank headquarters (Frankfurt, 2022) and Tendril at Tampa International Airport (Tampa, FL, 2017). He has also contributed to site-specific projects like Dynamo at Expo Dubai 2020 (Dubai, 2021) and public monumental artworks such as Scrawl at Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (Madrid, 2023).

Additionally, his extensive solo shows include At Any Given Hourat Galerie Anita Beckers (Frankfurt, 2024); Pixelweaver at bitforms gallery (New York, 2023) and Turbulencias at Galería Max Estrella (Madrid, 2022). He has exhibited in major museums and galleries across the world, including Reina Sofia Art Museum (Madrid), The Phillips Collection (Washington DC), ZKM Center for Art and Media (Karlsruhe), and many more.

Lee Yung-Chih holds a master’s degree in the Department of New Media Art from the Taipei National University of the Arts. He spent his formative years in an urban setting filled with factory noises and street litter. His work often deals with the displacement and appropriation of art forms and everyday designs, with the absurdity, melancholy, calmness, and aloofness of reality felt through everyday experiences, revealing his seemingly futile political agenda via the camouflage of imitation and representation. Recent major exhibitions include Biennale Jogja (2019); The Secret South: from Cold War Perspective to Global South in Museum Collection (2020) at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum; and Phantasmapolis: 2021 Asian Art Biennial at the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Memory Palace in Ruins at Taiwan Contemporary Culture Lab (2023). In 2022, Lee was selected for the Taiwan Contemporary Culture Lab“CREATORS”project, curating a series of public art events. An artist now, Lee previously served as an environmental inspector.

Musquiqui Chihying is a visual artist and a filmmaker who resides and works in Taipei and Berlin. His artistic endeavors focus on issues of post- and trans-modernity in the Global South, postcolonial identity, and contemporary technology. He often employs media such as sound, music, and moving images to construct a narrative vocabulary, offering alternative perspectives on the interconnectedness of human condition and ecological environments. Many of his works have explored the special historical circumstances of ethnic and technological exchange between the African, Asian, and Afro-Asian Sea regions. Musquiqui Chihying’s works have been exhibited in numerous international art institutions, including WIELS in Brussels, Art Sonje Center in Seoul, Centre Pompidou in Paris, Neue Berliner Kunstverein in Berlin, Power Station of Art in Shanghai, UCCA Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing, among others. His film works have been screened at various film festivals, including Locarno Film Festival in Switzerland, Berlin International Film Festival in Germany, Rotterdam Film Festival in the Netherlands, and the Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival. In 2023, he was awarded the Tung Chung Prize by the Hong Foundation in Taiwan. In 2019, he received the LOOP Video Art Award from the Han Nefkens Foundation and the Joan Miró Foundation in Spain. He was also nominated for the Berlin Art Prize in Germany that same year. He is a member of the Taiwanese art group Fuxinghen Studio and leads the Research Lab of Image and Sound (RLIS), focusing on media technology and image politics research.

Wu I-Yeh is a Taipei-based artist and developer whose work spans the fields of code, installation, visual and sound. He graduated with a MFA in Computational Studio Arts from the Goldsmiths College, University of London. His art practice is time-based, exploring the potential of technology in everyday life and its impact on humans and the environment. To encourage viewers to reflect on the role of technology in our lives and to engage with it in a more thoughtful and critical manner. His installations and video works have been exhibited in various galleries and art spaces in Taipei, as well as internationally.

Li Yi-Fan, an artist based in Taipei. Li uses subtle black humor in his art to explore the relationships between people and technology in the digital age. In his recent work, he employs self-developed software in game engines and uses a one-person production crew approach to act out the stories behind production technologies of moving images in an impromptu manner. In recent years, with the support received from projects such as the National Culture and Arts Foundation’s “WSAD” and Taiwan Contemporary Culture Lab’s “Toolkit of Madness,” Li has conducted studies on machinima and developed a series of game-engine-based image production toolkits, which he used to create artworks that include important_message_360.mp4, howdoyouturnthison, What Is Your Favorite Primitive, and others. Some of the exhibitions Li has participated in include Subzoology: 2020 Taiwan Biennial, Phantasmapolis: 2021 Asian Art Biennial, and Small World: 2023 Taipei Biennial.

Matthew Griffin is an Australian artist currently living and working in Melbourne. His work has been exhibited in conventional and unconventional forums in Australia and internationally, including museums and galleries such as the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne; Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Sydney; Hayward Gallery, London; and on social media platforms including Instagram and eBay.

Matthew Griffin’s practice engages a range of media including video, installation, sculpture, photography, collage and photomontage. Recurring themes in his work include body-object relations; the makeshift and haphazard as sculptural qualities; the contemporary ubiquity of cameras and the resulting difficulty of producing meaningful images in the post-internet age. In recent projects Griffin has examined the way humour functions in both a visual and narrative form, and the ethical dilemmas associated with the production of contemporary art.

His work is held in public collections including the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Sydney; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; Monash University Museum of Art, Melbourne; and Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane.

Born in Taipei in 1999, Hsu Zhe-Hao develops his artistic practice through spatial installations, videos, and mixed media. By closely engaging with contemporary media, he explores the intricate relationships between humans, information, and symbols. His work addresses a critical question: In a world where we are constantly bombarded with information, can we reclaim our agency and take back the initial action? Drawing from subtle observations of everyday phenomena, his current works focus on the complexities of the post-Internet era, reflecting on the contemporary media landscape. With a touch of humor, his art captures the bewildering nature of our media-saturated lives.

Artworks

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Image Fever

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