Page 254 - 臺中市第二十七屆大墩美展專輯

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Digital Art

Category
Juror's Statement LU Ching-Fu

My worst fear about government-run art exhibitions is “following the old conventions;” that is, showing all the old clichés over and over again, as
if the public money must be spent because it was time to organize an exhibition. However, my experience with the Digital Art Category at this year’s
Da Dun Fine Arts Exhibition was different, mainly because all the participating artists were able to continually innovate and evolve, presenting
something new.
For example, the First Prize winner LI Ying-Jung submitted an AR work, which had been a rarity in the past. She was the Second Prize winner
in the Digital Art Category at last year’s Da Dun Fine Arts Exhibition, but she followed up her success with an even better work, finally emerging
as the winner. The work presents the sympathy of reality and virtuality, converting virtualization into a kind of skeleton to “symbolize a character
that wanders in dreams.” She said: “Through weaving scenes, viewers perceive the joy of the skipping spirit.” Unlike conventional AR works, she
uses drawings to present scenes and characters, rather than the more commonly seen real sceneries (reality) with augmented 3D characters. As for
skeleton, it usually strikes as spooky, but the author wants to express the “joy of the skipping spirit,” which is arguably an alternative way to achieve
her purpose.
This year’s Second Prize winner CHUANG Che-Kuang has also ventured beyond conventional frameworks. At first, he studied architecture, but
he crossed over to animation, and it was not just the common 2D animation—he created touching three-dimensional rotations using 3D software.
In the virtual Metaverse, he said: “The streamed videos on social media become the new human’s non-physical appearances.” The author assembles
these symbols into machines, allowing viewers to imagine the appearances of new humans.
The Third Prize winner was CHEN Tin-Chun’s digital installation of two-channel video; perhaps it was the reconstruction and reassembly of
images, or the combination of sceneries and mindscapes, the author hoped that herself could achieve true contact with the external world.
Among winners of Award of Merit, CHAO Shu-Jung intended to construct the spiritual scenery of a city, claiming to take viewers onto a journey,
which is a journey within everyone’s heart, and explore the combination of inner and external experiences. On ordinary sceneries, the artist layers
cut-out buildings and reflections that move in a single direction, and the single-directional flow gives the sceneries more variations.
LIN Chen-Hung’s work directly films the reflected objects on the mirror surface inside a cone; the inside of the cone reflects a distorted image of
the external surroundings, but the author believes that the images are both real and virtual images, because of the “packaged subjective consciousness
from an objective perspective.” Maybe, real objects are real, and therefore the mirror surface of the cone becomes a speaker for the monitoring of the
filmed environment.
Most of these entries express the artists’ hipster-like reflections and thoughts. Their mindscapes and objects are entangled; objects are less
augmented, and therefore, not as often triggered by social interaction. This reminds me of the recently announced Prix Ars Electronica in Austria—
winner of the Golden Nica in the Interactive Art category, Hsu Jung, is also from Taiwan. This is the first-ever win for Taiwan at this event, and the
artist was touched by the social movement on the Internet. Inspired by the Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong, in which protesters fought police’s
pepper sprays with yellow umbrellas. The work allows the public to remodel umbrellas into WIFI antennae, giving protestors great mobility to
call out for friends, which is why it is referred to as nomad network. The work shows a large crowd where everyone has an umbrella in an urban
landscape, presenting a magnificent view.
The Digital Art Category at this year’s Da Dun Fine Arts Exhibition had 32 participants, with only 4 from overseas; compared to past years, we
had fewer participating artists, and even fewer foreign entries. Therefore, we shall work even harder, so that participating artists of Austria’s Prix Ars
Electronica will also want to participate in Da Dun Fine Arts Exhibition!