Post-humanist Desire

2013 / 11 / 23 Sat.

2013 / 01 / 12 Sat.

10:00 - 18:00

About

The term “Post-human” comes from Post-human Manifesto by Steve Nichols, published in 1988. Although the definition of “Post-human” remains unresolved within academic and artistic circles, the term has become very common in describing the divergent and complex life expectations and identities of 21st century people. Post-humanist Desire is both the final and the major exhibition of the year at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), Taipei, which is curated by Dr. Ming Turner, who has done extensive research on this topic in the UK. A group of twenty-five artists have been invited to participate and show their works in the exhibition, to help interpret the continuously developing and noteworthy theme of the “Post-human,” under three headings: the “cloned human,” the “transgendered human,” and the “transformed human.” The content and structure of this exhibition first responds to the feminist philosopher Donna Haraway’s reflections on digital technology and the artificial intelligence of the early 1990s. She extended the meaning of the “cyborg,” a neologism and concept first seen in the 1960s, to include a combination of both organic and artificial life in which humans seek new ways to break the boundaries between nature and culture. In fact, people today do not adhere to any single value, but live in varied, heterogeneous, and inconsistent systems. The three aspects of this exhibition present the amalgamation and operation of these systems, and even touch upon the aspects of life formation that were originally heard in creation myths. The group of 25 artists include: Patricia Piccinini (Australia), Victoria Vesna & Siddharth Ramakrishnan (USA), Shih-Fen Liu (Taiwan), Pey-Chwen Lin (Taiwan), Janaina Tschäpe (USA), Kevin Ryan (UK), Anna Dumitriu (UK), Björk (Iceland), Zan-Lun Huang (Taiwan), Len Makabe (Japan), Oron Catts & Ionat Zurr (Australia), Anna Munster & Michele Barker (Australia), Martin Rieser & Andrew Hugill (UK), Daniel Lee (Taiwan), Ritty Tacsum (Malta), Phil Sayers (UK), Ane Lan (Norway), U-Ram Choe (Korea), Yu-Chuan Tseng (Taiwan), Saya Woolfalk (USA), Yang Na (China), Jane Prophet (UK), Hui-Chan Kuo (Taiwan), Elizabeth King (USA), and Jia-Hua Zhan (Taiwan). These artists’ works contribute to the variety and rich content of this exhibition, questioning our views of anthropocentrism and guiding us to discuss the following issues pertaining to our future: 1. Post-humanist body concepts and gender consciousness; 2. Post-humanist desires and practices; 3. Post-humanist procreation of life and transcendence of death.
(The artists are listed in the order of their works displayed in the exhibition.)

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Artists

Patricia Piccinini
Victoria Vesna
Siddharth Ramakrishnan
Shih-Fen Liu
Pey-Chwen Lin
Janaina Tschäpe
Kevin Ryan
Zan-Lun Huang
Len Makabe
Anna Dumitriu
Michele Barker
Martin Rieser
Andrew Hugill
Daniel Lee
Ritty Tacsum
Phil Sayers
Ane Lan
U-Ram Choe
Yu-Chuan Tseng
Saya Woolfalk
Yang Na
Jane Prophet
Hui-Chan Kuo
Elizabeth King
Jia-Hua Zhan
Björk
Oron Catts
Ionat Zurr
Anna Munster

Patricia Piccinini was born in West Africa in 1965. She holds a BA in Economic History from the Australian National University, and a BA in Painting from the Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne. She represented Australia in the 50th Venice Biennale in 2003. Piccinini is particularly interested in the development of contemporary genetic engineering and its effects on the eco-environment and on society. She employs artistic methods that are seemingly scientific to design and produce artworks representing species unknown to the world, while she blurs the distinction between the natural and the artificial as well as the dichotomy between good and evil, creating a new way of thinking which is free from the stories of mythology and the concept of evolution.

Victoria Vesna was born in Washington, D.C., America, in 1959, and is now a professor at the UCLA Department of Design and Media Arts and the director of the Art|Sci Center. She is also a senior researcher at the IMéRA (Institut Méditerranéen de Recherches Avancées) in Marseille, France.

Siddharth Ramakrishnan was born in in Chennai, India in 1979. He was a post-doctoral researcher at UCLA Art|Sci Center, and is now an assistant professor of biology and neuroscience at the University of Puget Sound. The two artists have been in collaboration since 2009.

Shih-Fen Liu was born in Taipei in 1964. She graduated from National Taipei Nursing College, and has been nominated by Taipei Awards in three consecutive years. She was also the representative artist of Taiwan in La Biennale di Venezia in 2001. Artistically, she is interested in issues concerning life, gender, and the body. Stemming from embryological theory, Garden of Mullerian Ducts – the Lost Ghost is an installation aimed at revealing the duality of the truth in life.

Pey-Chwen Lin was born in Taiwan in 1959. She obtained her doctorate degree in Creative Arts from the University of Wollongong, Australia, in 1995. She is a professor of the Department of Multimedia and Animation Arts at National Taiwan University of Arts and is currently the director of the Digital Art Laboratory. For many years, she has exhibited her work both domestically and internationally, including at the Queens Museum of Art (New York), the Media Art Biennale (Poland), the Audio Visual Art Festival (Ukraine), the Exit Art Festival (France), the Taipei Biennial, and at MOCA Shanghai. Her artistic themes originate from her experiences in and understanding of life as well as her faith. She specializes in mixing technology, digital images, and interactive methods to represent the indifference of technological civilization and the emptiness of artificial creatures.

Janaina Tschäpe was born in Munich, Germany, in 1973. She obtained her MFA from the School of Visual Arts in New York in 1998, and lives and works in both Brazil and New York. Her artworks reflect her own psychological experiences and the physical status of the human body. Utilizing various media, such as video, painting, photography, and watercolor, she seeks or constructs a harmonious and communicative relationship between experimental life mechanisms and primitive nature.

Born in Bristol, UK, in 1957, Kevin Ryan is a documentary photographer. He studied arts at Portsmouth School of Art and Design, and Social Administration and Politics at Loughborough University. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts, CEO of Charnwood Arts, and director of Mailout Magazine. He has worked on many art projects in a wide variety of countries, including India, China, Canada, Poland, Croatia and Palestine, among others.

Zan-Lun Huang was born in Yilan County, Taiwan, in 1979, and is currently an MFA student at the Department of Fine Arts at Taipei National University of the Arts. He has held solo exhibitions at the Taipei Artist Village and Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts, Taipei. Responding to the theory of the cyborg, his works focus on the combination/hybridization of robotic and organic lives as a means of understanding and exploring both the environment and oneself. Facing technological development and the application of such technologies, Huang’s works aim to discuss the value and capacity of human desire from an alternative perspective.

Len Makabe was born in Tokyo in 1956, and graduated from the Department of Sculpture, Tokyo University of the Arts. His inspiration and creative energy come from his feelings for the people and animals in his life, especially from their individuality and personality.

Anna Dumitriu was born in the UK in 1969. She holds an MA in Fine Art from the University of Brighton, and has had exhibitions in Australia, UK, Seoul and Bangkok, among others. Her work centers on bio-art, and she uses digital technology, physical chemistry, live bacteria and textiles to create artworks, blurring the boundaries between art and science with a strong interest in the impact of emerging technologies on modern society. She is currently an artist-in-residence working with the UK Clinical Consortium Project, “Modernizing Medical Microbiology,” at the Nuffield Centre for Clinical Medicine at the University of Oxford. This work was made in collaboration with Dr John Paul, Dr Rosie Sedgwick, Kevin Cole, Dr Simon Park, and Sue Craig.

Anna Munster was born in Sydney, Australia, in 1963. Her works have been shown in Japan, USA, and Europe. Michele Barker was born in Australia in 1969. She participated in the Mexican Biennale of Electronic Art in 2002 and is a former winner of the Harris National Digital Art Awards of Australia. Both artists currently teach at the University of New South Wales in Australia and have been in collaboration since 1995. Their works incorporate research on neuroscience and explore the relationship between vision and movement in human perception. Their interest in, and concerns for, neuroscientific development, diagnostic process, and application are reflected in many of their works.

Martin Rieser was born in London, UK, in 1951. He taught Digital Creativity at De Montfort University, UK, and has engaged in digital and interactive art since the 1980s. Andrew Hugill was born in the UK in 1956. He is a composer, writer, and academic. He is the Director of Creative Computing at Bath Spa University, UK. Both artists promote and support digital art in the UK.

Martin Rieser was born in London, UK, in 1951. He taught Digital Creativity at De Montfort University, UK, and has engaged in digital and interactive art since the 1980s. Andrew Hugill was born in the UK in 1956. He is a composer, writer, and academic. He is the Director of Creative Computing at Bath Spa University, UK. Both artists promote and support digital art in the UK.

Daniel Lee was born in Chongqing, China, in 1945. He moved to Taiwan when he was very young, and moved to the US after receiving his BFA from the University of Chinese Culture. He now lives in New York. In the late 1970s, he started to focus on fashion and humanistic documentary photography, and in the 1980s, he combined his photographic techniques with artistic creation. The advancement of computer technology in the 1990s enabled him to merge different media, such as painting and photography, to create his unique style. He was one of the key artists at the Whitstable Biennale in the UK in 2004, and he has since gained further critical acclaim and recognition at the Shanghai Biennale (2006), the Asian Art Biennial (2007), and at Documenta, Germany (2012).

Ritianne Muscat (b.1990, Malta) known as Ritty Tacsum is a largely self-taught experimental photographer and multimedia artist who has a keen and sensitive eye for the abnormal, absurd, weird and surreal. She has been working as a freelance photographer over the past 3 years, specializing in artistic and experimental work. Her work has been published in several local and foreign magazines (online and in print) and also in a Dutch publication. Ritty has had two solo shows: “Ritty Tacsum and her Humanoids” and “Four Rooms,” both at St James Cavalier, Malta, in 2011 and 2013, respectively. In “Four Rooms,” Ritty explored, analyzed and dissected the intricacy of the human body and the human psyche through varying degrees. She has exhibited in Malta and UK and her work can be found in several private collections.

Phil Sayers was born in the UK in 1945, and studied Fine Art at Manchester College of Art and Design with postgraduate study at Leeds College of Art and Leeds University. He is a transvestite artist who performs feminine masquerade in photographic images, drawing attention to gender stereotypes and identification. His early works reference eighteenth and nineteenth century paintings and sculptures where he re-interprets classical pieces by masquerading and posing as characters from the works. Through his work, Sayers questions imposed gender ideology. His latest projects focus on elderly women, celebrating the female body and defying views of male dominance.

Ane Lan was born in Oslo, Norway, in 1972. He graduated from the National College of Art and Design in Oslo, and participated in the 51st Venice Biennale and the 10th Istanbul Biennial. He works in the fields of performance, music, and experimental film/video and on topics such as transvestism, politics, and individuality. “Ane Lan” is his alias as an artist, a signifier that transcends gender boundaries as well as a composite of artistic imagination and visual representation. Ane believes gender is only a concept imposed by the social system; the term itself does not signify any specific characteristic.

U-Ram Choe was born in Seoul, South Korea, in 1970. He obtained his MFA from Chungang University in Seoul. Specializing in creating kinetic sculpture, he has held solo exhibitions in Korea, Japan, and the US. He combines exquisite metallic craftsmanship and materials including infrared sensors and motors to create works mimicking pre-historic plants, insects, and fish that also resemble creatures from the world of science fiction.

Yu-Chuan Tseng is an assistant professor in the Department of Public Relations and Advertising at Shih Hsin University. She obtained her MA in Studio Art from New York University in 1994, and received her PhD in Applied Arts from National Chiao Tung University. She is the chairperson of the Taiwan Women Art Association, and specializes in Internet interactive devices, using them to convey her artistic concepts. She has held a number of solo exhibitions in Beijing and Taiwan.

Saya Woolfalk, born in 1979, is an American artist who is currently teaching at Parsons: The New School for Design in New York. She enjoys using elements from science fiction and fantasy to illustrate a new world and to expand the vision of contemporary art. Her works have been shown in museums and galleries all over the US. From her Japanese-European-African-American and female perspective, Woolfalk discusses and explores the concept of biological and cultural hybridity in her works. Through combining human and machine, or human and other materials, her works embody the concept of America as a melting pot of cultures, while implicitly reflecting the cultural conflicts and ethnic ambiguity found in American society.

Born in Chongqing, China, in 1982, Yang Na obtained her MA from the Oil Painting Department of Sichuan Fine Arts Institute. Different from Chinese artists of an older generation, whose works are greatly influenced by historical events and political contexts, Yang grew up during the time of China's economic boom as the country opened up to international trade. Similar to other young people born after the beginning of the 1980s, she is more concerned with the influence of pop culture and new technology. Her artwork reflects the transformed material environment and further offers a fantasy about human beings of the future.

Jane Prophet was born in Birmingham, in the UK, in 1964, and received her PhD in Arts Education from Warwick University. She now teaches at City University of Hong Kong. She prefers to use a range of old and new media to create surprising artworks. She has collaborated with neuroscientists, stem-cell researchers, and mathematicians to challenge the boundaries between science and art, and to re-develop the relationship between nature and human beings.

Hui-Chan Kuo was born in Yilan in 1976, and obtained her MA from Chelsea College of Art & Design, University of the Arts, London. She was awarded the Honorable Mention of Taipei Arts Award in 2003. Her works have been shown around the world including in Tokyo, Paris and Canada among others. She is currently teaching in the Department of Communication of Fo Guang University and the Department of Art and Design of Yuan Ze University. Kuo specializes in making digital images; her works reflect the relationship between humans and the environment and explore the value and direction of individual existence.

Elizabeth King is a professor of sculpture at Virginia Commonwealth University in the US. She specializes in combining precisely movable figurative sculptures with stop-frame animation. Her artistic themes center on clockwork automata, puppets, and artificial figures that suddenly come to life in literature. Her artworks are in the permanent collection of a number of museums such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Jia-Hua Zhan was born in Hsinchu in 1987. She graduated from the Department of Multimedia and Animation, National Taiwan University of Arts. Her work includes new media projects, videos, interactive installations, and interactive performances. She has won numerous international awards, and specializes in combining visual art and performance art to explore the relationship between human beings, technology, and media, forming a unique visual database of body imagery.

Björk was born in Iceland in 1965. Winner of the Polar Music Prize in 2010, she is a versatile singer-songwriter, famous for her strong experimental style. While she excels in composing songs and playing instruments, Björk is also an accomplished actress and music producer. She has participated in the production of Drawing Restraint 9, a work by the visual artist, Matthew Barney, and she has also scored music for films.

Oron Catts was born in Helsinki, Finland, in 1976. He graduated from Curtin University in Australia and now lives in Perth, Australia. He teaches at the University of Western Australia and is the director of SymbioticA, a laboratory in biological arts. His research focuses on the combination of art and bio-materials.

Ionat Zurr was born in London, UK, in 1970, and received her PhD from the School of Architecture, Landscape, and Visual Arts, University of Western Australia. She is currently an assistant professor for research projects at SymboticA. She and Oron Catts established the “Tissue Culture and Art Project”, which is considered a leading project in the field of bio-art.

Anna Munster was born in Sydney, Australia, in 1963. Her works have been shown in Japan, USA, and Europe. Michele Barker was born in Australia in 1969. She participated in the Mexican Biennale of Electronic Art in 2002 and is a former winner of the Harris National Digital Art Awards of Australia. Both artists currently teach at the University of New South Wales in Australia and have been in collaboration since 1995. Their works incorporate research on neuroscience and explore the relationship between vision and movement in human perception. Their interest in, and concerns for, neuroscientific development, diagnostic process, and application are reflected in many of their works.

Artworks

Aloft
The Welcome Guest
Hox ZODIAC, Taipei
Garden of Mullerian Ducts—the Lost Ghost
Revelation of Eve Clone III
Revelation of Eve Clone II
Botanica series
Entschüpft
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