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Lee Young-Baek's Angel Soldier PHOTOS: SUSAN KENDZULAK AND COURTESY OF MOCA

Instant messages, e-mail, space travel: We can communicate and traverse the world faster than our predecessors could. But is being faster necessarily better? Modern thinkers rue the fact that new technology obliterates distance. Musing on the connections between the human body, speed and efficiency in this era of nanoseconds, artist and curator Yuan Goang-ming (袁廣鳴) has brought together international artists for Slowtech, an exhibition that examines the aesthetics of slowness, and asks us to slow down and smell the roses.

With Huang Po-chih's (黃博志) strangely titled Flov"er, one can stop and, well, not smell, but see roses. The artist scanned 10,000 roses over a four-month period to make a work that is extremely time-consuming. Speed and time are relative terms as demonstrated in Chen Chih-chien's (陳志建) Date Line, a work of digital photos of the Ximen area shot during a 24-hour period, then made into a 5-minute collage that used over 2.5 million frames to show the "now " and the "then" together. These labor-intensive works become anomalies in this age of quick consumption though; yet this self-imposed delay in the technology is shared by many contemporary digital artists who laboriously build their works bit by digital bit.

Miwa Yanagi's Miwa.

Dissolution by video-art pioneer Bill Viola is on display. The portraits of a man and woman were first filmed at a high speed of 240 frames per second (fps) with a 35mm camera, then digitally scanned and slowed down to 15fps. Their faces slowly submerge under the water, which produces a vibrant effect like a Renaissance portrait painting.

Ron Mueck's Dear Dad.

The exhibition's piece de resistance is Granular Synthesis's booming digital visual-sound installation. Four large projections of a woman's head made from thousands of flickering images and high-frequency staccato sounds create a high tech for the the senses. Even though she acts in a familiar way, smiling, rotating her head, and blinking, the exaggerated editing makes this riveting to watch.

Bill Viola's Dissolution.

Have you ever thought what you would look like 40 years from now? Miwa Yanagi 's photographic series titled My Grandmothers shows the artist and other young women acting out their fantasy images of aged woman. They appear as archetypes, not withered flowers.

Laurie Anderson of O Superman fame is represented here by Tilt, a carpenter's level equipped with sensors that create sounds when the viewer approaches. In her words "I just enjoy giving old tools new jobs. "

Taiwanese artists hold their own among what is termed "blue chip" artists. Tao Ya-lun's (陶亞倫) disorienting installation titled Unconsciousness -- Drifting Speed: 300,000 Kilometers Per Second consists of a light beam that moves slowly up and down a darkened mirror room to create a physical sensation of being suspended in gravity-free space. The beams highlight the particles of dust in the air and seem to penetrate the body.

Tseng Yu-chin's (曾御欽) video projection of elementary school children seems to be the reflection of ourselves as children: When we look at their self-conscious giggling and posing we are able to unlock our own childhood memories.

Ron Mueck used to make human models for Hollywood movies. His realistic technique of model-making combined with his extreme sense of scale makes him an artworld favorite. Here, his lifeless prone Dear Dad captures an eerily accurate representation of human skin.

Lee Yong-baek's disturbing Angel Soldier exemplifies the times we live in. At first the large wall projection looks like a brightly colored field of flowers. The viewer gets disoriented as the brain perceives the bright flowers as happy symbols, but when a camouflaged figure starts to emerge, clutching a rifle, the happy image suddenly becomes nightmarish.

Slowed down digital art, encourages deeper reflection on the messages conveyed through conceptual art.

Exhibition notes:
What: SlowTech
Where: MOCA, 39 Changan Road, Taipei (台北當代藝術館, 台北市長安西路39號)
When: Through Sept. 3
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