Streaming Colony: Nesting Terrariums

Artists｜WU Chi-Yu＋CHEN Pu

Exhibition｜2023.10.07-12.17

Opening｜2023.10.14 (Sat.) 14:30

Venue｜U-108 SPACE, National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts

Screening Schedule (admission time)｜

9:20, 9:50, 10:20, 10:50, 11:20, 11:50, 12:20, 12:50, 13:20, 13:50, 14:20, 14:50, 15:20, 15:50, 16:20,

(16:50, 17:20 on Sat. and Sun.)

Supervisor－Ministry of Culture

Organizer－National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts

AR Workshop

2023.11.11 (Sat.) & 2023.11.26 (Sun.)

Venue｜Classroom at 2F, East Wing of NTMoFA

Lecture Performance：Guided Adventure in Biosphere 0

2023.11.11 (Sat.) & 2023.11.26 (Sun.)

Venue｜U-108 SPACE

About the Exhibition

Since the Age of Sail, the movement of human beings and the exchange of species have continued to shape the Earth’s ecology through cultivation, which has also pushed the evolution of ecological views based on utilitarianism. London in the 19^th century was shrouded in factory-induced smog, and people imagined the ecological environment in the fast-growing industrial city through sealed glass boxes. The Wardian case was an object of technology in the form of a sealed protective container that carried a piece of the ecosystem inside. It was used in the Victorian era when ferns and orchids were quite popular and also played a pivotal role in the British East India Company’s transplantation of tea saplings from China to India. Through the industrial revolution and global trade, the Wardian case further catalyzed ecological exchanges and prompted drastic changes. This project proposes an alternative space-time where ecology exists in a sealed container, a parallel history that exists in a greenhouse. As artificial ecological development becomes the norm, the behavior of collecting species has shifted from an obsession to systematic planning. Humans are no longer occupiers and takers of nature but a key factor in how it’s shaped. The greenhouse ecosystem has become an inevitable way for the environment to exist, and the primitive way no longer exists; the archival records and the greenhouse environment become the ultimate way to imagine our ecosystem.

Since transplantation carried out using the Wardian case involves more than just a single species but an entire ecosystem, the transplantation process requires people to slice, edit, and collect the environment, similar to how a database is constructed, with an alternative ecological future thereby envisioned. In this future, the human race has drastically altered the Earth’s environment, where the ecological landscape is shaped by a database of generative artificial intelligence, and the environment exists only in sealed boxes where reality has been erased. Human beings can only maintain their memories of the past ecology through records and collected information, with the signal sent from the archival documents applied to cultivate the ecosystem in those containers, transforming the impressions and the languages stored in their memories into the fundamental elements needed for the growth of the plants, and “Light” is the signal. This piece of the forgotten signal is reprogrammed in this future environment by the terrariums that are similar to databanks, and at the same time, the self-sufficient and seemingly prolific ecosystems in the cases also contain memories of time and space, and while streaming and disrupting the colony, they go from databanks to terrariums, from one greenhouse to another.

Artists

WU Chi-Yu (1986-)

Based in Taipei, WU Chi-Yu is a multimedia artist whose works include film, video installation, and photography. He delves into the lost and unestablished links among species, environment, and the technology that constructs human civilization, exploring the complex historical geography of Asia and the interdependence of various beings through multiple narratives. His works have been exhibited and screened at Times Art Museum, Guangzhou (2021); MoCA, Taipei (2020); 2018 Shanghai Biennale; 2016 Taipei Biennial; Beijing International Short Film Festival (2017) and was a resident artist at Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten (2014-2015).

CHEN Pu (1986-)

Chen Pu’s art forms an art ecosystem that brings together graphic and three-dimensional elements, virtuality and reality, and static and dynamic qualities, and the artworks are based on Chen’s original hand-drawn images, and through interdimensional artistic expressions, his artworks are set free to transcend and piece together virtual spaces and physical scenes. Chen was invited to exhibit and hold a workshop at Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, and his works have been presented in Kenya, Centre Culturel de Taïwan à Paris, Mo & Friese Children’s Short Film Festival in Hamburg, Fang Suo Commune Bookstore in Guangzhou, Taitung Design Centre, Eslite Gallery, Spain, Kaohsiung, Keelung, and Taipei, with more than three million people who participated in those events. He has also been recognized with First Prize of the Taipei New Horizon Festival, Mayor Award of the Taipei Design Award, and named Best Video of the Year by the Centre Pompidou, along with other international design and art awards.

Production Team

Artist | WU Chi-Yu, CHEN Pu

Exhibition Production | Wu Chi-Yu Studio

Video Production | 247Visualart

Script | WU Chi-Yu

Sound Design | Mothra Productions

Video Director | CHEN Pu, LIN Chun-Hung

Visual Design | CHEN Pu, HSU Chiao-Chen, WANG Chun-Yen, CHANG Yu-Yen, KUO Ping-Cheng, SU Yong-Hua

Animation Design | CHUANG Hao-Yen, WANG Chun-Yen, CHANG Yu-Yen, KUO Ping-Cheng, SU Yong-Hua

Live Stream Execution | WANG Chun-Yen, WU Chi-Yu

Exhibition Execution | PAN Chong-Yu, WANG Chun-Yen, CHEN Chia-Yin

Graphic Design | CHEN Pu, HSU Chiao-Chen

Calligraphy | CHEN Pu

Voice acting | CHENG Yin-Chen

Translator | Camille Chen

Partners

Industrial Technology Research Institute

Dr. Cecilia Koo Botanic Conservation Center

Taiwan Orchid Growers Association

Chi Yueh Enterprise Ltd.

Special thanks
CHOU Chia-Hui