Extrastellar Evaluations

2016 - Film & Video (Film & Video)

Yin-Ju Chen

year born: 2011
gender: female
nationality: American & Taiwanese

Through a semi-fictional approach, Extrastellar Evaluations envisions a version of history in which alien inhabitants, the Lemurians, lived among humans under the guise of various renowned conceptual and minimal artists in the 1960s (Carl Andre, Mel Bochner, and James Turrell to name a few). If humans interpreted and appropriated the geometric-shaped works they created as conceptual and minimalist artworks, the objects were in fact transmission devices the Lemurians used to report back on human actions to their mother planet. The video takes the form of a channeled message from Adama, High Priest and spiritual leader of the Lemurians. Adama attempts to give viewers clues to decipher the history of the Lemurians, the purpose of their existence on earth, and information about the identities of their agents (artists).


Yin-Ju Chen is a multidisciplinary artist, working in video, photography, drawing, and multi-media installation. She interprets social power and history through cosmological systems, using astrology, sacred geometry, and alchemical symbols to consider themes of human behavior, nationalism, imperialism, racism, state violence, totalitarianism, utopian formations, and collective thinking. Recent works illustrate the inevitability of cycles of history, developing the scope of Chen’s long-term consideration of notions of power and collective (un)consciousness. Chen was in residency at KADIST San Francisco in 2016.


Colors:



Related works featuring themes of: » Film/Video, » United States, » American & Taiwanese  
» see more

Donald of Doom Tank
© » KADIST

Kristen Morgin

2008

Donald of Doom Tank (2008) is a replica of a vintage metal toy with Donald Duck’s image one side and a soldier on the other...

Jeep Comics
© » KADIST

Kristen Morgin

2008

Jeep Comics is based on the second of only two issues published by RB Leffingwell and Company in 1944–45...

No World
© » KADIST

Fang Lu

2014

No World is an action-filled video work filmed inside an abandoned museum in the Songzhuang area outside Beijing...

Flutter
© » KADIST

Zarouhie Abdalian

2010

The first iteration of Flutter was specifically conceived for the Pro Arts Gallery space in Oakland in 2010, viewable from the public space of a sidewalk, and the version acquired by the Kadist Collection is an adaptation of it...

Other related works, blended automatically  
» see more

Spaceship sketches of The Lemurian
© » KADIST

Yin-Ju Chen

2011

This work includes sketches for Extrastellar Evaluations , the project she produced at Kadist...

Donald of Doom Tank
© » KADIST

Kristen Morgin

2008

Donald of Doom Tank (2008) is a replica of a vintage metal toy with Donald Duck’s image one side and a soldier on the other...

Jeep Comics
© » KADIST

Kristen Morgin

2008

Jeep Comics is based on the second of only two issues published by RB Leffingwell and Company in 1944–45...

No World
© » KADIST

Fang Lu

2014

No World is an action-filled video work filmed inside an abandoned museum in the Songzhuang area outside Beijing...

Related works sharing similar palette  
» see more

buZ Blurr, One Telling of the “Origin Story” at Straat Museum Amsterdam
© » BROOKLYN STREET ART

buZ Blurr, One Telling of the “Origin Story” at Straat Museum Amsterdam | Brooklyn Street Art BROOKLYN STREET ART LOVES YOU MORE EVERY DAY In the shifting culturescapes of urban contemporary art, STRAAT Museum’s latest exhibition, “Moniker: An Origin Story,” emerges as a poignant narrative that bridges the transient heritage of hobo monikers with the vibrant pulse of today’s street art scene...

Curator Lauren Haynes Revisits a 1966 Profile of Spiral, Pioneering Black Art Collective
© » ARTNEWS RETROSPECTIVE

Curator Lauren Haynes Revisits ARTnews’s 1966 Profile of Spiral Group – ARTnews.com Skip to main content By Alex Greenberger Plus Icon Alex Greenberger Senior Editor, ARTnews View All November 4, 2020 5:15pm ©ARTnews I n 1963, 14 Black artists in New York formed the Spiral group...

You Make Me Iliad
© » KADIST

Mary Reid Kelley

2010

Situated in German-occupied Belgium at the end of World War I, Y ou Make Me Iliad by Mary Reid Kelley focuses on the story of two...

Weekly Picks: Malaysia (3–9 Dec 2018)
© » ARTS EQUATOR

Weekly Picks: Malaysia (3–9 Dec 2018) | ArtsEquator Thinking and Talking about Arts and Culture in Southeast Asia Weekly To Do December 3, 2018 The Edge , at Lot’ng, 8–23 Dec This is a beautiful locally produced musical that explores the relationships and past of a man standing on the edge...

Other works by: » Yin-Ju Chen  
» see more

Spaceship sketches of The Lemurian
© » KADIST

Yin-Ju Chen

2011

This work includes sketches for Extrastellar Evaluations , the project she produced at Kadist...

One Universe, One God, One Nation
© » KADIST

Yin-Ju Chen

One Universe, One God, One Nation was inspired by Hannah Arendt’s analysis of space exploration and by the astrological horoscope of Chinese political and military leader Chiang Kai-shek (1887-1975)...

Extrastellar Evaluations III: Entropy: 25800
© » KADIST

Yin-Ju Chen

2018

Extrastellar Evaluations is a multimedia installation produced during Yin-Ju Chen’s residency at Kadist San Francisco in the spring of 2016...

Related works found in the same semantic group  
» see more

On Becoming Earthlings
© » COUNCIL ART

Film programmes exploring the attempts of humans to represent the different scales of environmental crises (2015–)...

Not Fully Human, Not Human at All
© » KADIST

With Saddie Choua, Valentina Desideri, Denise Ferreira da Silva, Arely Amaut, Nilbar Güres, Ibro Hasanovic, Jelena Jureša, Doruntina Kastrati, Kaltrina Krasniqi, Pedro Neves Marques, Christian Nyampeta, Daniela Ortiz, Monira Al Qadiri, and Lala Rašcic...

I am Human, Abstract Foil, No Humans IV
© » KADIST

Chris Johanson

2004

Chris Johanson’s paintings, sculptures, and installations break down everyday scenes and commonplace dramas into colorful forms; the darkest sides of humanity are invoked with humor...

Wherein one nods with political sympathy and says I understand you better than you understand yourself, I’m just here to help you help yourself
© » KADIST

Yee I-Lann

2013

Sarcastically titled to call attention to the problematic notions underlying colonialism, this photograph shows hundreds of Native Malaysians seated quietly behind one of their colonial oppressors...