Palimpsest is a series of what artist Phi Phi Oanh calls “pictorial installations”. Lacquerscope is the name she has given to the lacquer projection machines that she created from lenses and old parts of small format film projectors. The name harkens back to the early age of mechanical reproduction that also coincides with the “invention” of Vietnamese lacquer painting in the last century.
In 2019, Ayoung Kim traveled to Mongolia to research its widespread animistic belief system towards land, mother rock, stones, and sacred caves that purify human guilt. The Mongolian people’s belief that rocks and minerals are alive, like other natural elements, consider the particular origin myth that human beings were born from stones. For the video work Petrogenesis, Petra Genetrix Kim creates her own hyperbolic mythology connected to the origin of the fictional mineral genderless Petra Genetrix, a figure who also appears in other recent works by the artist.
In Dark Beyond Deep by Zhu Changquan the film presents the process of how consciousness gradually develops and extends from the real world to virtual space through a raven named Cyma. Cyma redefined things in the “digital garden” in the film by comparing them with the logic in reality. It opened a new passage for mutual reflection between objects in real life and the existence of digital objects in digital space.
Qui vivra verra, Qui mourra saura is an installation by Minia Biabiany composed of the plan of a house made out of strips of salt, and a “garden” made of ceramic pieces, hanging from the ceiling and on the floor, and non woven fabric. She uses blue and red filters to alter the hues of light coming from the outside. The work focuses on the disappearance of traditional knowledge associated with the “jardin de case” outside Guadeloupean houses.
Gated Commune , a video by Camel Collective, is a critique of the complex, and often obtuse, language used to describe sustainable development projects. To construct a future scenario in the imagination of the viewers, a voiceover narrates two perspectives of futuristic practices in architecture and social behaviors: neo-primitives on one hand, who value organic materials and design based on geometric forms, and futurists on the other hand, who value organic forms and computer design. In this constructed universe, both perspectives lead to societal structures that malfunction due to issues with their design, which are not in line with their users’ needs.
In Andrew Norman Wilson’s work Kodak the artist uses computer-generated imagery to create narratives that question the reliability of images in the age of post-production. The artist creates disturbances in typical notions of time and space to highlight the existential terror of humans trying to make sense of their memories and perception in the 21st century. On its surface, Kodak questions how improvements in digital imagery have affected the analog film industry, but it also showcases the consequences for how humans relate to their memories.
The final work in the Marshal Tie Jia series (of which Turtle Island is in the KADIST collection), Spirit Writing features the Marshal in conversation with Chia-Wei Hsu, by way of a ritual involving the Marshal’s divination chair. Marshal Tie Jia is a frog god, who was born in a pond in Jiangxi, China, before fleeing to Matsu Island off the coast of Taiwan during the Cultural Revolution after his temple was destroyed. Spirit Writing attempts to reconstruct the original temple using 3D modeling software, operated in real time as Hsu asks the Marshal questions, receiving answers through a divination ritual in which the chair is swung violently around by his acolytes.
El Contorno (Outlines) is a three-channel video installation that features five actors performing a script—at times individually and at times in unison—choreographically moving across an indistinct urban space. As the view shifts from one performer to another we notice that they are all in close proximity and that the feed from all three channels was simultaneously filmed. The scene unravels with actors moving in and out of view in an elaborate negotiation between their bodies and the camera’s movements.
Elizabeth McAlpine’s work frequently deals with time based issues as well as the experience of watching. In The Height of the Campanile , McAlpine has calculated the height of the tower and timed her shooting of it so that the length of the film in meters is exactly that of the height of the tower. Thus the time it takes to view the film, and the pace at which the camera pans up the tower are equivalent to the height of the tower.
This ephemeral installation by Jirí Kovanda, documented in the same way as his performances with a photograph and a text, belongs to a body of works that took place in his apartment/studio. During an interview with Hans Ulrich Obrist, the artist highlighted that he had never had a studio and that this work space blended with his apartment. A piece of string cuts across the room in a diagonal; it functions as a scale to measure time and space.
Drawing & Print (Drawing & Print)
“School of the seven Bells (SOTSB)” is based on a series of hands games in which an object is passed from hand to hand. The performance is a reference to the film by Robert Bresson, “Pickpocket”, where a group of pickpocketers play with their victims. The artwork, through the actions of the hands, is an interrogation into space and time, questioning the relationship between public and private space, the establishment of communication through the body and visual exchange and gestures between aggression and sensuality.
It is with the eye of a sculptor that Charlotte Moth records modernist architecture and its copies which she encounters during her trips and residences. Photographed in black and white, these architectures seem empty, out of time, and open to any interpretation. The artist creates a classification of her species of spaces, called the “Travelogue”, which is both artwork and tool since it allows her to ceaselessly generate new works.
Julien Crépieux is interested in the medium of video and its confrontation with cinema. Microfilm is a video transcription of a cinematographic work. It isn’t a remake or an adaptation, but a transcription in the musical sense.
In Time is a 24-hour video in which the artist rests, hangs and clings onto the minute hand of a large clock, 4 x 4 meters in diameter, arduously counting out a full 24-hour cycle so that the video becomes a functional time-keeping device. In standing in for and becoming time, Mitchell ultimately examines its essence as it passes before her. Dressed in blue work overalls, Mitchell appears like a maintenance or quality control worker, making sure every moment is up to muster.
Extrastellar Evaluations is a multimedia installation produced during Yin-Ju Chen’s residency at Kadist San Francisco in the spring of 2016. Chen’s project departs from a 19th century theory popular within Western biogeography that posited the existence of a “lost land” or ancient continent called Lemuria that had sunk beneath the Indian and Pacific Ocean due to cataclysmic geological change. As a result, its inhabitants, the Lemurians, found refuge in Mount Shasta, California.
This work is meditative and fragile. These abstract forms are projected slides belonging to another lecture, Travelogue , where the images have been removed. What is left is the hole of the frame of the slide that light draws upon and projects on the wall.
The work of Keith Tyson is concerned with an interest in generative systems, and embraces the complexity and interconnectedness of existence. Philosophical problems such as the nature of causality, the roles of probability and design in human experience, and the limits and possibilities of human knowledge, animate much of his work. Language as a coded system, as a representation medium, but also as something that generates a whole variety of realities also plays a central role.
The work Calendars is composed of 1001 images of deserted public areas in Singapore printed on pages of a calendar set from the year of 2020 until 2096. Yet Chong photographed these public spaces (shopping centers, museums, MRT stations and schools) between 2004 and 2010. Calendars continues Hong’s conceptual investigation of the intersections between time, space and situation.
Phi Phi Oanh’s unique practice and methodology is anchored in the study of lacquer and pushes the boundaries of the material as a sculptural and conceptual form...
Andrew Norman Wilson is an artist, curator, and filmmaker whose practice is mostly based in research and documentary...
Charlotte Moth has been constituting an image bank since 1999...
Zhu Changquan engages in artistic activities through analyzing everyday life...
Minia Biabiany’s practice is concerned with the past and ongoing effects of colonialism, exploring the poetics of resistance embedded in everyday life practices, and translating this research into the exhibition space through careful consideration of the cultural and spiritual implications of the material she uses, and the techniques she employs...
Drawing on her background in theater design and direction, Maya Watanabe is known for her multi-channel video installations that explore the relationship between language, collectivity, identity, and space...
Ayoung Kim is interested in notions of crossings, transmissions, transnationals, trans-positions and reversibility...
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...
Elizabeth McAlpine has described herself as a « fanatical geologist » who explores the different layers of cinematic footage...
Camel Collective comprises the artists Carla Herrera-Prats (Mexican, photographer and conceptual artist) and Anthony Graves (American, painter), who began working together in 2005 during a fellowship at the Whitney Independent Program...
Li Gang’s practice creates a meticulous and poetic balance between materiality and conceptuality...
Kate Mitchell’s work addresses everyday worries; time, money, work and the future...
This ephemeral installation by Jirí Kovanda, documented in the same way as his performances with a photograph and a text, belongs to a body of works that took place in his apartment/studio...
Elizabeth McAlpine’s work frequently deals with time based issues as well as the experience of watching...
Palimpsest is a series of what artist Phi Phi Oanh calls “pictorial installations”...
El Contorno (Outlines) is a three-channel video installation that features five actors performing a script—at times individually and at times in unison—choreographically moving across an indistinct urban space...
It is with the eye of a sculptor that Charlotte Moth records modernist architecture and its copies which she encounters during her trips and residences...
Julien Crépieux is interested in the medium of video and its confrontation with cinema...
The work Calendars is composed of 1001 images of deserted public areas in Singapore printed on pages of a calendar set from the year of 2020 until 2096...
Drawing & Print
“School of the seven Bells (SOTSB)” is based on a series of hands games in which an object is passed from hand to hand...
In Time is a 24-hour video in which the artist rests, hangs and clings onto the minute hand of a large clock, 4 x 4 meters in diameter, arduously counting out a full 24-hour cycle so that the video becomes a functional time-keeping device...
The final work in the Marshal Tie Jia series (of which Turtle Island is in the KADIST collection), Spirit Writing features the Marshal in conversation with Chia-Wei Hsu, by way of a ritual involving the Marshal’s divination chair...
Gated Commune , a video by Camel Collective, is a critique of the complex, and often obtuse, language used to describe sustainable development projects...
Extrastellar Evaluations is a multimedia installation produced during Yin-Ju Chen’s residency at Kadist San Francisco in the spring of 2016...
In 2019, Ayoung Kim traveled to Mongolia to research its widespread animistic belief system towards land, mother rock, stones, and sacred caves that purify human guilt...
Qui vivra verra, Qui mourra saura is an installation by Minia Biabiany composed of the plan of a house made out of strips of salt, and a “garden” made of ceramic pieces, hanging from the ceiling and on the floor, and non woven fabric...
In Andrew Norman Wilson’s work Kodak the artist uses computer-generated imagery to create narratives that question the reliability of images in the age of post-production...
In Dark Beyond Deep by Zhu Changquan the film presents the process of how consciousness gradually develops and extends from the real world to virtual space through a raven named Cyma...