TAIWAN VIDEA 2017 Selection

August 16-20, 2017

The Taiwanese Avant-garde Video Screening Project

Curator: Yunnia Yang

The curatorial project “TAIWAN VIDEA” intends to converge the creative energies and aesthetic features of film art, including video art, performance art, experimental films and animations, digital animations, etc. The depth of the selected videos refers to many facets of human beings’ living conditions: the alarming consequences of the human will to challenge nature with technology and civilization (Lin Peychwen’s “Making of Eve Clone I”); critique of the chase after a ‘Progress’ that is deteriorating humanity (Huang Zan-Lun’s “Double”); the revelation of beautiful lies constructed by the authorities (Chen I-Chun’s “ The Piggy Song”); the seriousness of the collective consciousness manipulated by the contemporary media (Zhang Xu-Zhan’s “Ritual of Cathode Ray Tube”); nutrition taken as a metonymy to criticize politicians devouring people’s future dreams with empty promises (Wang Ding-Yeh’s “Beef-Wonderful Promises”); the analogy between images of the New Year’s Eve fireworks and a candle as a metaphor of the contradiction between the celebration of a country’s future and the sacrifice of its martyrs (Ho Wei-Ming’s “Over My Dead Country”); the danger and paranoia of a over-expanding self-consciousness (Wu Tzu-An’s “Disease of Manifestation”); the spatial imagination of an individual searching for the freedom of his body and mind (Pu Shuai-Cheng’s “Secret Plane-Immense Floating”); the intimacy and mystery of an encounter breaking cultural stereotypes (Chang Huei-Ming ‘s “Tough Town”); the questioning about a simulated scenery in everyday life (Tsui Kuang-Yu’s “ Invisible City: Taiparis York”); new aesthetic possibilities of representing the oriental landscape painting (Wu Chi-Tsung’s “Landscape in the Mist”); a Leviathan-like monstrous image composed by a dozen of footages showing the danger of consumption (Jawshing Arthur Liou’s “Insatiable”). These 12 creative videos from Taiwan cross over the boundaries of fine arts and pop culture. The issues of “TAIWAN VIDEA” are not only related to Taiwan itself but also to the contemporary problems in the world. Creative thinking with universal value is the fundamental necessity of avant-garde images with subversive power.

Yunnia Yang is a curator, art historian and art critic based in Taipei, Taiwan. PhD in Arts from the National Taiwan Normal University. Adjunct Associate Professor of the Department of Sculpture at the National Taiwan University of Arts.