Travels in an electronic void

While all of the hullabaloo following Taipei City councilwoman Lee Wen-ying's (李文英) outcry over a display featuring sketches and photographs of male and female genitalia earlier this week will, no doubt, ensure the Taipei Fine Arts Museum does a roaring trade this weekend, the offending presentation is certainly not the only head-turning exhibit currently on display at the museum.

Stream of Encounter -- Electronic Media-based Artworks (靈光流匯 -- 科技藝術展) is not part of the current Taipei Biennial, nor does it concern itself with our nether regions.

Featuring 19 works by 20 artists from Germany and Taiwan, the contents of the exhibit might at first appear to be simply a random collection of contemporary artworks. There is, however, both method and an underlying theme.

Streams sets out to explore how the use of modern technology as a medium for artists can help them to interact with time and space in ways the brush would never allow.

By incorporating the mediums of video, photography and audio -- the concept of guest curator Andreas Walther -- the show concerns itself with the relationship between technology, art and the unknown.

Located in the museum's spacious basement galleries, all of the works demand more than a fleeting glimpse. Through the use of audio and visual mediums more commonly associated with home entertainment than art, the works attempt to draw attention to sights and sounds that one's subconscious either opts to ignore or overlooks.

Although artists such as Toni Mestrovic and his Changing the State of Matter in Stereo -- which shows the screaming of water when it hits a hot surface -- rely on installation-styled forms, it is the exhibition's photographs that really demand a second look.

A fine example of this is Liu Chung-hsing's (劉中興) Is There Anybody There? (有人在嗎?). This work shows a photograph of a cliff face that, on the surface appears to be nothing but a stunning vista. Liu asks the viewer to take a second look to discover more than just rocks and trees.

Chen Yung-hsien (陳永賢) takes the opposite approach and has produced a very busy work. The effect, however, is much the same, making the viewer look for hidden values. Chen's video work Flight (飛) asks the viewer to look further than the single in-focus bird and take in the background, which contains scores of birds captured in flight.

While some might argue that the entire venture is a complete waste of space rather than an "art" exhibition, the very differing styles, content and surprises that each individual work posses actually work in the exhibition's favor.

What: Stream of Encounter -- Electronic Media-based Artworks (靈光流匯 -- 科技藝術展)

Where: Taipei Fine Arts Museum (台北市立美術館), 181 Chungshan N., Rd., Sec. 3 (中山北路三段181號)

When: Until March 23