This exhibition brings together 27 artists and art collectives to share slices of contemporary life as viewed through multiple interfaces, opening up a full-spectrum reading of humanity’s digital existence. The contemporary online world, with its websites, social media platforms, virtual environments, and smart devices and systems, presents us with a networked archipelago mapped into place by interdependent, intertwined microsystems. It also provides a space for the expression of the vitality and hidden potential that are constantly pouring forth from our digital selves. The exhibition will draw together digital objects normally scattered throughout a reality in flux, and weave them into this electronic spectrum. The curators and artists have collectively composed a prism-like internal structure for the exhibition, coordinating a wide range of topics and narrative modes in an attempt to write a speculative science fiction trilogy about completely new forms of perception.
Participating artists include David OReilly, Pascale Birchler, panGenerator, Guo Cheng, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, Lin Ke, Liu Di, Liu Jiayu, Lawrence Lek, Payne Zhu, Pete Jiadong Qiang, Studio Above&Below, Shao Chun, Shinseungback Kimyonghun, Shi Zheng, Yehwan Song, Sun Yitian, Tang Chao, Coralie Vogelaar, Ziyang Wu, Xin Yunpeng, Ye Xuan, Yin Yi, Ann Veronica Janssens, Wenxin Zhang, Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries, Ian Cheng.
Turquoise and Shadow Spring
Three-channel video / color / sound / 11’00’’ / 6480×3840 / 2022
Commissioned by UCCA Center for Contemporary Art
Artist Tang Chao exhibited his latest commissioned works in the “City of Mist” section on the third floor of UCCA Edge. This work is inspired by a hypothetical posed by the artist Tang Chao: if we think of media information as an endlessly flowing river, can we trace it back to its source? When using a video platform, often no matter where you start browsing, the platform’s autoplay mechanism inevitably pushes a wide range of other videos onto you. The long history of this information flow can be charted in parallel with a series of events: Aza Raskin’s invention of the infinite scroll mechanism and this mode of perpetual browsing; nutrition psychologist Brian Wansink’s experiments into the tripartite relationship between visual systems, the mind, and hunger; a conspiracy theory about a possibly kidnapped mukbang streamer named Kate Yup; and more. In this work, Tang draws upon these narratives and transforms them into a contemporary fairy tale. Recalling the imagery of Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Girl Who Trod on the Loaf,” the filmic narrative seems like both a dialogue between two intelligent robots and an interrogation of selfhood. The artist uses this vague fairy tale imagery as a metaphor for the deluge of information today, ultimately providing a response to his original question: the driving force buried deep at the source of this information flow is perhaps desire, or perhaps it is not.
INSTALLATION VIEW
ABOUT THE ARTIST | Tang Chao
Tang Chao was born in Hunan, China in 1990. He graduated from the School of Inter-Media Art of China Academy of Art in 2014.
His recent solo exhibitions include: “Nights after Days”, The Store, Seoul, Korea (2022); “Nonphysical: Shimmer (online project)”, Vanguard gallery, Shanghai, China (2021); “From Lack to Light” (2017) took place at Vanguard gallery, Shanghai.
His works were featured in the following group exhibitions: “The Pieces I Am”, UCCA Edge, Shanghai, China (2022); “Unnamed River: 2021 Curatorial Award for Photography and Moving Image Exhibition，ZiWU，Shanghai, China (2022); “Night Dimension: Night as Prelude Art Exhibition”，UCCA Edge, Shanghai, China (2022); “Within Space – Time, We Walk Through Images, Glow Shenzhen 2021 – Futian, Shenzhen, China (2021); “Emerging Media Artist Exhibition Un/Conventional”, OCAT Shanghai, China (2020); “Play Socieities: wolves, lynx and ants”, Hyundai Motorstudio, Beijing, China (2020); “In a Half of Maze”, CAA Art Museum, Hangzhou, China (2019); “Sooner/Later”, SNAP, Shanghai, China (2019); “Incandescence”, BIG SPACE x Chino Gallery, Shanghai, China (2019); “The Time That Remains—Room No.6”, Grey Cube, Goethe Institut China, Beijing, China (2018); “Questioning Photography Now”, GCA, Chongqing, China (2018); “Pity Party”, Sleepcenter, New York, USA (2018); “Indoors Universe”: the 5th Huayu Youth Award, Huayu Art Center, Sanya, China (2017); “A map of the world that does not include utopia is not worth glancing at”, Beijing Commune, Beijing, China (2017); Spain Moving Image Festival, Madrid, Spain (2017).
