Lost and found but a bit disoriented

By Max Woodworth
STAFF REPORTER
Sunday, Nov 09, 2003, Page 19

Australian new media collective pvi took strangers for a stroll on the MRT, inside a cocoon, in their project Panopticon. PHOTO: MAX WOODWORTH, TAIPEI TIMES

The impending departure of resident artists at Taipei Artist Village has brought a flurry of performances and short exhibitions over the past week of projects that the residents worked on during their two-month stints in the city.

Two of the works will be on show until Nov 23.

Juliane Stiegele of Germany has taken the itinerant nature of her stay in Taipei as the thematic focus of her installation Stopover which is currently on view at the village.

Comprising about 80 identical model tents suspended at equal height off the floor and scattered at random throughout the exhibition space, the piece is a visually arresting comment on the notions of community, rootedness and the mobility of modern societies.

The transience implied by the tents are made all the more stark by their suspension off the floor, while their emptiness highlights the lack of community or human presence.

The entire piece actually includes three elements. The first is the assembly of suspended tents. The second was a 12-hour sleepover on Friday in the courtyard of the village, which in Stiegele's words was "just to see what type of community we can create in that spot for one night." The third part of the project was conceptualized as an action in which Stiegele planned to lie inside a larger version of her model tents and be lifted by helicopter about 2m off the ground and moved a short distance and then placed back on the ground. But Stiegele learned, to her dismay, that regular citizens can't simply rent a helicopter for these purposes in Taiwan.

Juliane Stiegele's Stopover leaves the viewer hanging. PHOTO: MAX WOODWORTH, TAIPEI TIMES

"It seems they're very nervous about these things here. Maybe it's because of China," she said, laughing. In Taipei, this part of Stopover has been replaced by a sketch on the wall of the exhibition space depicting the helicopter lift.

Despite the missing element of the project, Stopover is a wonderfully executed expression of the disorientation and insecurity of the short-term visitor in a new place, which was essentially Stiegele's experience as a first-time visitor to Taiwan.

The second exhibition currently on show is by the Australian new media collective known as pvi.

The two members of pvi built a cocoon-like ball using umbrellas which people could wear over their heads. But pvi didn't wear it themselves. Instead they asked random strangers at MRT stops to wear the umbrella structure all the way to their destination.

They found five takers, three of whom made it to their destination, while two were forced to remove the umbrella cocoon by confused MRT personnel. Each transit was recorded on video and the films of these awkward trips can be seen projected onto the umbrella structure which hangs in an exhibition room at the village.

The inside of the umbrellas provides a completely insulated space that is a way of reclaiming privacy in public spaces.

In some recorded segments, umbrellas are held in front of security cameras in an explicit blocking out of an uninvited viewer and a forceful assertion of the privacy that is violated through the installation of security cameras in public areas.

By making subjects out of crowds and unwitting strangers, the project, titled Panopticon, is, perhaps unintentionally, reminiscent of skits on the show Jackass or Candid Camera in which the reactions of the crowds and of the participants provide as strong a comment on the societies being filmed as you're ever likely to witness.

With this in mind, it's especially interesting to see what transpires during this guerilla art event in Taipei's MRT.

Both exhibitions are on view until Nov. 25. The Taipei Artist Village is located at 9 Beiping E Rd, Taipei (台北市北平東路9號).