This year saw the “6th City on the Move Art Festival” which addressed two central themes; “Eye of the City” curated by Hsiao Shu-wen and “Dark City” jointly curated by Kuo Chao-li and Liu Ko-feng. This exhibition shows works from 13 artists and architects, who explore such weighty issues as urban civilization, progress and existence.
“Eye of the City” invited Nicolas Floch (尼可拉斯.弗拉克) (France), Ryoichi Kurokawa (黑川良一) (Japan), Yuki Okumura (奧村雄樹) (Japan) and four new generation Taiwanese artists Wang Ya-hui, Chiang Yuan-hao, Yao Chung-han and Chen Chih-chien. They then produced works which through the application of images and sounds expressed various visual elements and concerns related to cities, as part of a broad discussion on sense of time and space as experienced in a city, as well as the sense of sight, hearing and even smell as experienced by urban residents. At the same time, these artists also took slices of urban life and chose to deconstruct or replicate them, presenting the audience with more incisive sights.
In “Dark City” six mid-generation architects from Taiwan, Ho Yi-li, Chiu Wen-chieh, Yao Jen-hsi, Lu Hsi-chieh, Yang Chia-kai, Su Yu-che present works that discuss the relative nature of darkness and lightness in urban space and in so doing highlight the distinctive nature of nightlife in modern Asian cities. As spatial magicians, these architects make use of changes in light, shade and sound to recreate their own personally defined “dark city.”