Wandering Ghost No.9
Wandering Ghost No.9 is a VR experience installation that moves in a horizontal fashion. After putting on VR headsets, audiences can stand on a mechanical platform and feel their bodies slowly moving horizontally in a vast virtual utopia. “Monument to the Third International” was a project devised by Vladimir Tatlin for the propagandist monument plan led by Lenin in 1919. To commemorate the October Revolution, the monument’s artistic concept was laden with political appeal and social ideal. Architecture-wise, it fully embodied the thinking of constructivism and conformed to Soviet Union’s ideal of national efficiency. Built with industrial material, such as steel, iron and glass, the conical spiral monument reveals a massive structure that displays immense momentum, which, if completed, would not only exceed the height of the Eiffel Tower but also break away from classical architecture. Within the steel structure of the tower is a geometrical building comprising four rotating tiers, each turning in a speed rate determined by its function and execution efficiency. The ground-floor cube is to be used for the legislative institution; its rotation rate follows the legislative session cycle and takes one year to complete a full spin. The pyramid space above the cube, which is for the administrative institution, completes an individual spin every month. The subsequent cylinder is the information center of the propaganda and communication institution, which rotates daily. The top tower, installed with projection equipment, completes its spin hourly. The spire of the tower functions as a radio tower for broadcasting and is equipped with a powerful projection system that can project important national decisions and messages onto the cloud every day. In terms of the state apparatus, the tower is the hardware, and people’s power is its software—a celebrated open system that honors people’s decisions to be announced by the government. It is not only a symbol of the communist power but also that of people’s power. However, Tatlin only finished the model of the monument. Like the modern Tower of Babel, it was never built; yet, later generation has imagined and interpreted it throughout history. It has never existed in reality, but it is never absent; instead, it lingers in people’s mind and never disappears.
Tao Ya-Lun
(b.1966)He was born in Taipei, Taiwan. TAO Ya-Lun is a pioneer in the Taiwanese new media art scene. He is the recipient of numerous prestigious honors and awards, including the International Digital Festival of Contemporary New Media Art (MADATAC) in Madrid, Spain; the most iconic contemporary art award in Taiwan—the Taipei Arts Award; and the Taipei County Prize. He is also the youngest recipient of the Contemporary Painting Creation Prize that symbolizes the contemporary artistic spirit in the Chinese-speaking art community. Meanwhile, he is the grantee of the Taiwan Fellowship Program by the Asian Cultural Council (Rockefeller Brothers Fund), for which he has been invited to visit the US as a visiting scholar. He has been invited by the Headland Center for the Arts in San Francisco as an artist-in-residence; and has been invited by 1a space in Hong Kong and sponsored by the Hong Kong Arts Development Council to become the first artist-in-residence at 1a space. In addition, he has conducted artist residency at the Nordic Institute for Contemporary Art, which is famous for digital image and techno-art. TAO was ranked the first in the grant program of the Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris, France. He was also an exchange artist in Boston at the invitation of the Boston City Government. TAO was invited by the MADATAC in Madrid, Spain to present his solo exhibition at the Media Lab Prado in Madrid. He was also invited by the mayor of San Lorenzo del Escorial to present his solo exhibition at the Monasterio de San Lorenzo. In 2009, he was invited by the OK Zentrum in Linz, Austria to hold a large-scale solo exhibition. TAO has also held solo exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MoCA), Taipei; the Digital Art Center, Taipei; the Taipei Fine Arts Museum; the Nordic Institute for Contemporary Art, the Hong Kong Arts Center; the Headland Center for the Arts in San Francisco; the Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts.