Stones and Elephants
2019 - Installation (Installation)
12:59 minutes
Chia-Wei Hsu
Stones and Elephants by Chia-Wei Hsu derives from the Malay literary classic The Hikayat Abdullah . The author Abdullah bin Abdul Kadir, who once served as the secretary of Major General William Farquhar, chronicled his life in Malaysia and published his writings in 1849. Hsu’s video installation excerpts two chap- ters from this classic. The artist invited a Malay shaman to read these two stories as a voiceover and to pray for a peaceful filming trip. The chapter “Melaka Fort” depicts how the British destroyed the strong fortress to weaken Malacca and return control of the region to the Dutch East India Company, while the other describes the locals, William Farquhar, and his interest in ecology. The perspective offered by the drone creates a unique relationship between the human and the non-human. The artist can only use technology and the internet as a vessel for memories. As stated in the narration, “all these have passed, showing that everything is so fragile.” Algorithms ensure that every keyword search will show different results, presenting elements of truth among the uncertainty of this work. Through this, Hsu attempts to retrace historical scenes that have been lost to time.
Embarking from myriad audio-visual narratives, Chia-Wei Hsu pursues imaginative interrogations of cultural contact and colonization in Asia, oftentimes amalgamating his primary narratives with non-human actors including technologies, animals, gods, environments, traditions, and material objects. Bringing these diverse subjects together results in a bumpy ontological bleed between them, forming the topography of a historical geography without a straightforward objective position. By reinterrogating what histories and relations coexist within a given locale, Hsu’s work manifests new imaginative potentialities for their revitalization, an uncertain, profound terrain throughout his films and installations. While his work has consistently probed regulatory systems including religion, science, architecture, and military action, Hsu’s work has increasingly explored digital ontologies and the Internet of Things, in which previously luddite household objects have become connected to the internet. The digital, as a territorializing field produced by components largely manufactured in Asia, allows Hsu to attempt the detournement of western knowledge-bases to formulate new, imaginative archipelagos.
Colors:
Related works sharing similar palette
© » KADIST
Kristen Morgin
2008Jeep Comics is based on the second of only two issues published by RB Leffingwell and Company in 1944–45...
© » ARTNEWS CN
Liu Wei: China’s Trickster Mixer-Upper – ARTnews.com Skip to main content By Barbara Pollack Plus Icon Barbara Pollack View All February 26, 2014 5:00am When the Rubell Family Collection opened its doors with an exhibition of 28 Chinese artists in time for Art Basel Miami Beach last December, one of the stars that emerged from the show was Liu Wei , whose brand of geometric abstraction surprised many Americans looking for more stereotypical hallmarks of Chinese art ...
© » ARTS EQUATOR
SEE WHAT SEE (May 2021): SOUTHEAST ASIAN DOCUMENTARIES | ArtsEquator Thinking and Talking about Arts and Culture in Southeast Asia ArtsEquator Viewpoints May 15, 2021 By Joel Tan To borrow and distort the title of David Shield’s lyrical manifesto against fiction: I’ve been HUNGRY for reality in the month of May...
© » ARTS EQUATOR
Weekly Southeast Asia Radar: Ultraman Buddha hotly traded; Course on democratic dissent cancelled in Singapore | ArtsEquator Thinking and Talking about Arts and Culture in Southeast Asia ArtsEquator Radar Photo: Chardchakaj Waikawee / Facebook September 18, 2019 ArtsEquator’s Southeast Asia Radar features articles and posts about arts and culture in Southeast Asia, drawn from local and regional websites and publications – aggregated content from outside sources, so we are exposed to a multitude of voices in the region...
© » KADIST
Ruijun Shen
2006In Seven Deadly Sins (2006), Shen utilizes abstraction to produce complex topographies of color that evoke associations with violently tumultuous landscapes...
© » ARTS EQUATOR
Podcast 68: Critics Live! Wild Rice's Merdeka | ArtsEquator Thinking and Talking about Arts and Culture in Southeast Asia Articles Rueyloon from Wild Rice November 13, 2019 Theatre critics Corrie Tan, Nabilah Said, Carolyn Oei and Kathy Rowland discuss the recent production of WILD RICE’s Merdeka / 獨立 /சுதந்திரம் , in a critics-led post-show conversation held in front of an audience on 19 October 2019 at WILD RICE’s Ngee Ann Kongsi Theatre...
© » LENS CULTURE
Finding Common Ground In Street Photography - Photographs by Joep Hijwegen, Julie Hrudová, Bart Koetsier and Rolf van Rooij | Essay by Erik Vroons | LensCulture Feature Finding Common Ground In Street Photography What makes a great ‘street’ photograph? Erik Vroons explores the infinite possibilities of the genre while reflecting on the diverse work of five Dutch photographers...
© » ART CENTRON
Top Art Auction Houses: A Comprehensive Look at Titans of the Art World - Artcentron Home » Top Art Auction Houses: A Comprehensive Look at Titans of the Art World ART AUCTION Feb 9, 2024 Ξ Leave a comment Top Art Auction Houses: A Comprehensive Look at Titans of the Art World posted by ARTCENTRON Christie’s is one of the top art auction houses in the world...
© » KADIST
Tony Labat
2008Commissioned by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and riffing on the “I Want You” army recruitment campaigns of the 1930s and 1940s, Labat asked Bay Area residents to interpret the slogan and make their own demands of the public in a series of live performance auditions...
© » KADIST
Francisca Benítez
2018You have given the world your songs by Francisca Benítez is a poem in American Sign Language (ASL)...
© » NYTIMES LENS
Images of an El Salvador Town Transformed by Migration - The New York Times Lens | Images of an El Salvador Town Transformed by Migration https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/28/lens/images-of-an-el-salvador-town-transformed-by-migration.html Give this article Share Advertisement Continue reading the main story The political has long been the personal for those who decided to abandon all they knew in El Salvador to search for a safer, but uncertain, future up north...
© » KADIST
Moshekwa Langa
2004Hybridized drawing is a continued exploration in Moshekwa’s practice, integrating elements of graffiti, thread and yarn to enrich his abstract drawings of maps and space...
© » STEVE LAMBERT
Center for Artistic Activism's Unstoppable Voters Fellowship - Steve Lambert Center for Artistic Activism's Unstoppable Voters Fellowship - Steve Lambert Steve Lambert wrote a book!!! Art Works News Writing About Steve Contact Resume Now Newsletter Book Creative Commons BY-NC-SA August 2022 News , Studio Log Center for Artistic Activism I spent last week training the inaugural fellows for the Center for Artistic Activism’s Unstoppable Voters program ...