Creator of this particular fantasy world was Lin Pey-chwen, professor of multimedia and animation arts at the National Taiwan University of Arts. Her multimedia installation titled "Virtual Creation" used computer software, such as Flash and Maya, to produce special effects and offer audiences the chance to experience the power of images, Lin said June 14. This was one of several dozen works included in the "Boom! An Interplay of Fast and Frozen Permutation in New Media" exhibition that opened May 28 at NTUA in the Taipei suburb of Banciao, before moving to the Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts at the Taipei National University of the Arts June 5.
Part of a larger project, the exhibition grew out of collaboration between NTUA and the Centre for New Media Arts at the Australian National University. This began when teachers in the multimedia and animation arts department participated in academic seminars in 2004, followed by NTUA President Huang Kuang-nan setting up a formal cooperative relationship with ANU last year to promote further academic exchange activities. One result is the current event, as its subtitle of "Taiwan-Australia New Media Arts Exhibition" indicates.
Lin recalled a group of students took their work to ANU last year and participated in seminars about the development of new media. Through this kind of exchange of ideas, a constructive relationship was established, she said, and school representatives started to consider holding an exhibition in Taiwan as well. "In 2004, we became twin schools and have always sought to expand our friendship. Since then, staff and students have gone to Australia to participate in various related programs," she added, which is why ANU proposed focusing on the topic of new media for this year's exhibition.
Forty teaching and postgraduate student artists exhibited works ranging from animation, digital images, video and interactive installations to performance art. The range was kept intentionally broad in order to make visitors aware of how diverse media today are compared with traditional channels such as television. Artists expressed their concerns on a range of topics, such as issues of nationalism, gender, ecology and so forth. Discussing the variety of subject matter, Lin said, "Since this is the first time we held a bilateral new-media exhibition, we did not want to confine ourselves to one specific topic but, rather, wanted to maximize the effects new media could achieve."
Digital images offered a more dynamic feeling than static paintings done on 2-D surfaces, she said, and they often made use of distinctive color effects to attract people's immediate attention.
Lin's own work used moving images to create her underwater fantasy world on a wall-sized screen in front of visitors, while the room's remaining five walls were painted dark to simulate the feeling of diving in deep water. On a platform in the center of the room, like a rock protruding from the seabed, was a control panel for visitors to color the butterfly wings, Lin explained. Once they had achieved a result with which they were satisfied, their butterflies could fly onto the "underwater" screen. Visitors' participation and comments reconfirmed Lin's belief in human beings' innate desire for artistic creativity. "Most people buried themselves in the coloring process and ignored the abnormal existence of butterflies in the ocean," Lin noted.
"Virtual Creation" was, she added, a criticism of the shortcomings of civilization and represented her protest against new media. "Not every new-media artist appreciates the medium," she stressed, "some of us just use it to point out social problems." Her work, for example, was directed against those people who wanted to manipulate animals through cloning, she said. Humankind's disrespect for nature resulted in serious disasters like the Sept. 21 earthquake of 1999, she claimed. The earthquake reminded her that unlawful pursuit of personal profit could lead to destruction, and that without well-meaning intentions, modern technology did not necessarily bring benefit to human beings.
By coincidence, another Taiwanese artist--albeit one now teaching in the Department of Arts and Technologies of the Image at the University Paris 8 in France--Chen Chu-yin, created a similar though more abstract "underwater" work. Her installation projected jellyfish-like animals onto big mirrors placed around the gallery. Their soft bodies moved and stretched as changes were made to the color of the water. Chen said her work, titled "Gray," represented the transformation of energy as described in the guidebook of the exhibition. It was divided into a trilogy of life, "Enlightenment, Wilderness and Rebirth," for which she used computer programs to transform the cycle of life into an illusive animation.
In "Walking with Water," Australian artist Sarah Jane Pell combined her hobby of scuba diving with her art to explore the physical and mental strengths of the human body in the ocean, Lin said. Using breathing apparatus, Pell performed in her own work, undergoing a spiritual journey as she adapted to challenging extreme environments.
A unifying thread connecting the works of these three artists, therefore, was their use of water to explore unpredictable dangers and stimulating energy as a means of discussing issues of life. "Different perspectives in the work create the booming sound of the exhibition as well as the boom of a prosperous future for new media," Lin concluded.
Write to Sandra Shih at sandrashih@mail.gio.gov.tw