Date: 2019 / 07 / 20 (Sat.) – 2019 / 09 / 29 (Sat.)

Venue: Multiple Screens, National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts

Opening: 2019 / 07 / 27 (Sat.) 14:30 at Gallery 108

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Artist Statement

darkness within darkness is a paper made video combined with digital image and physical material. When I studied abroad, I began to be aware that I still carry the Oriental culture that I didn’t notice before. Meanwhile, I was trying to investigate the essence of moving image, and attempted to transform the medium in order to deduce.

As the film strips are transparent and smooth, the reality can be re-presented through projection, which makes the passing of time unnoticeable to viewers. However, with the development of digital technology, image no longer only displays on physical materials such as film or photo, and can exist within computer memory. From then on, image has become virtual data. In addition, as the persistence of vision of human eye, we’re able to read the abundant amount of continuous-still-image as moving image. I thus divided the digital video into the film ratio of 24-frame-per-second, and through the process of printing on papers and scanning as digital files, the re-composed video has carried the texture of the papers. The work is not only a virtual data but also a physical existence. According to the contrast between stillness and movement, virtual and physical, I’ve been led to the concept of “one body with two sides”. Throughout the experiment of medium transforming, I started to trace the origin of the “one body with two sides”, whose concept is based on Chinese philosophy of Taoism. Tao is empty yet inexhaustible; hidden but always present; a way of life yet not a locatable truth. Therefore, I used the fundamental and abstract substances from nature as image elements so as to present the mysterious Oriental time. In the generation when film strip has been disappearing, I respond my initial question with the work darkness within darkness, “Time”.

Wu Chia-Yun

Born in Taiwan, 1988, Wu Chia-Yun has completed the MA degree in Visual Communication from the Royal College of Art and the MFA degree in Motion Picture from the National Taiwan University of Arts. Her works include fiction film, video, and installation, focusing on the topics of “human condition” and “image time.” She is excellent at exploring the possibilities of images through poetic language, crossing the boundary between narrative and non-narrative. To study the essence of images, she often transforms the property of the materials into her work through craftmanship. With image-based works, she philosophically reflects her observation of life through examining the relationship between material and image.

Wu Chia-Yun has been awarded as Made in Taiwan New Artist by Ministry of Culture, First Prize of Kaohsiung Awards, Next Art Tainan Awards, S-AN Cultural Foundation Award, Excellent Award of Brainstorming Contemporary Arts Awards, First Prize of Taiwan Photo Museum Snapshot Competition, and was selected for Golden Harvest Award for Outstanding Short Film, Shanghai International Film Festival, UK Chinese Visual Festival, Kaohsiung Film Festival, Women Make Waves International Film Festival Taiwan, Taoyuan Contemporary Art Award, and others. Wu’s works were collected by The European Independent Film Channel, Art Bank of Ministry of Culture, Tainan Art Museum, and Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts.