Globalization is a mouthful

Globalization has been a trendy theme in art exhibitions ever since the seminal 1990 traveling exhibition Cities on the Move (COTM) which highlighted the rapid urbanization of Asian cities.

Fifteen years ago, it was quite startling for an art exhibition to bring tuk-tuks from Thailand to chaperone European art visitors around Vienna. COTM spawned countless exhibitions exploring similar issues of artists as cultural nomads and the far-reaching effects of globalization.

Border-crossing: the Shadow Dance of Cities currently on view at the Taipei Artist Village and at the Shanghai High Noon Art Center tries to bite off more than it can chew.

Hsinchu-based curator Sandy Lo Hsiu-chih (羅秀芝) tries to address too many ideas such as transnationalism, immigration, homelessness and diaspora, while a pared back approach would have been more suitable for this small-scale, low budget exhibition.

The exhibition is eager to please with its emphasis on multimedia, especially video works shown on large-screen monitors giving the main exhibition space the feel of an appliance showroom.

The videos all tend to feel the same, in that the camera is turned on randomly to observe, and even acts like a kind of surveillance device which in turn inadvertently gives the impression that anyone with a digital video camera who walks around a city can instantly become a global artist.

It is unfortunate that this grouping of works ultimately dilutes the messages of strong video artists Peng An-An (彭安安), Hsieh Ming-Da (謝明達), Ella Raidel and Lindsay Cox.

The City Message shows videos documenting the artists' absurd street performances in front of famous New York museums.

Yang Chun-luan (楊純鑾) shot her videos while in residing in Cairo, a place where filming people directly in public is banned. So her filming was done surreptitiously and shows that even though technology has spread throughout the world, there are still places untouched by globalization.

Photography is an ideal tool to document the fast-growing changes in Asia. China-based Tang Kwang-ming (湯光明) and Zhang Zong-mei (張宗眉) along with Taipei-based collective Channel A show a series of photos reflecting such transformations.

Photographer Daniel Traub originally from New York and now based in Beijing creates photojournalist-style work that captures the contrasts between the past and the rapid new changes around the city. Exhibited in western cities, the photos look exotic, however, it is not so epiphanic to look at the work in a Taipei space because right outside the door one can see a similar juxtaposition of cultural contrasts.

Japanese multimedia duo Off Nibroll's choreographer Yanaihara Mikuni and artist Takahashi Keisuke have a light-hearted, whimsical installation that delights children and makes technology seem fun. Open the curtain into their room, and your shadow gets projected onto a wall, and filled in with video imagery such as flocks of flying birds and herds of galloping horses.

Artist and designer Akibo Lee (李明道) has his own darkened room which projects his colorful fractal-like designs, while Lin Pey-chwen (林珮淳) shows her Matrix.

Wires jut out of a small robot-like appliance leading to small LED screens showing butterflies changing color. Butterflies are loaded with sentimental meaning and symbolize beauty. For an exhibition that focuses on the city, it would be more apt to depict a city creature like a cockroach or mosquito rather than a pastoral one.