TEA/Super Connect presents robots and other techno art from 16 countries. Curated by Lin Shu-min (林書民), the exhibition includes Dirk from the Netherlands — a freakishly real automated hobo who can interact with people — and concerts by the Heart Chamber Orchestra. Each of the 12 classical musicians has a heartbeat sensor connected to a computer, which generates electronic sounds and visuals based on real-time biofeedback.
■ Gallery A2 and B2, National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts (國立臺灣美術館), 2, Wuquan W Rd Sec 1, Greater Taichung (台中市西區五權西路一段2號) tel: (04) 2372-3552, open Tuesdays to Fridays from 9am to 5pm, Saturdays and Sundays from 9am to 6pm
■ Until Oct. 27
Photo Courtesy of National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts
On average, the Taipei employee works 2,282 hours a year, more than the worker in every Asian city besides Seoul, according to the Council of Labor Affairs. Are We Working Too Much (我們是否工作過量), a group exhibition that opens tomorrow, answers its title’s question in the affirmative, but then goes on to ask why we do it. Maybe it’s an old habit, says Hsu Che-yu (許哲瑜) with Sighing Flowers and Shamisen: scenes of Japanese occupation and a paper doll populace who make repetitive motions. Or maybe it’s really true we’re laboring in the pursuit of happiness. Riverbed Theater’s micro-play Six Feet Under — Ten Feet Above allows an audience of one to step away from mundane problems by walking into a “painting,” a world filled with forgotten dreams and new possibilities.
■ Eslite Gallery (誠品畫廊), 5F, 11 Songgao Rd, Taipei City (台北市松高路11號5樓), tel: (02) 8789-3388 ext. 1588. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 11am to 7pm
■ Opens tomorrow. Until Sept. 22
Photo Courtesy of Eslite Gallery
New Beginnings (從心出發‧藝鳴驚人) is a group show of artwork by prison inmates. Since 2006, the Agency of Corrections has organized annual art exhibitions to facilitate low-risk prisoners’ reintegration with society. As inmates prepare for the show, they gain opportunities to interact with the world beyond their facility and learn a craft that increases employability after completing their prison terms. This year the exhibition has over 100 pieces including rush-grass weavings, lacquer ware, Koji pottery, watercolor paintings and Chinese calligraphy.
■ Culture Gallery Corridor (文化藝廊) at the Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall (國立國父紀念館), 505, Renai Rd Sec 4, Taipei City (臺北市信義區仁愛路4段505號), tel: (03) 360-2975, open daily from noon to 8 pm
■ Until Sept. 1
Photo Courtesy of TIVAC
Sim Chang (張哲榕), winner of the Px3 Paris Photography Prize, brings candy-colored pieces featuring young women to his solo show Flat Flower (萌個展). Chang has converted real women into anime characters using outlandish costumes, quirky recurring props and masks, which are touchscreen tablets photoshopped over the face. Each doctored photo offers a version of reality that is more stylized, more beautiful and addicting. The cartoon betel-nut beauty in Pinang Girl is ready for adventure, and the ladies of After the End of the World have nary a hair out of place following a major industrial disaster.
■ Taiwan International Visual Arts Center (TIVAC — 台灣國際視覺藝術中心), 16, Alley 52, Ln 12, 16 Bade Rd Sec 3, Taipei City (台北市松山區八德路三段12巷52弄16號), tel: (02) 2577-1781. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 11:30am to 7pm
■ Opening reception tomorrow at 4:30pm. Until Sept. 22
Un-words (話非話) offers a grab bag of video works by Tung Fu-chi (董福祺) and highlights the single element of sound. A trio of curators have disassembled the footage so that Tung, who speaks in his characteristic over-enunciating manner, is seen trying to communicate with a peculiar body language and a cyborg-like singsong.
■ VT Artsalon (非常廟藝文空間), B1, Ln 56, 17, Xinsheng N Rd Sec 3, Taipei City (台北市新生北路三段56巷17號B1), tel: (02) 2597-2525. Open Tuesdays through Saturdays from 1:30pm to 9pm
■ Until Aug. 31
Last week Joseph Nye, the well-known China scholar, wrote on the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s website about how war over Taiwan might be averted. He noted that years ago he was on a team that met with then-president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), “whose previous ‘unofficial’ visit to the US had caused a crisis in which China fired missiles into the sea and the US deployed carriers off the coast of Taiwan.” Yes, that’s right, mighty Chen caused that crisis all by himself. Neither the US nor the People’s Republic of China (PRC) exercised any agency. Nye then nostalgically invoked the comical specter
April 15 to April 21 Yang Kui (楊逵) was horrified as he drove past trucks, oxcarts and trolleys loaded with coffins on his way to Tuntzechiao (屯子腳), which he heard had been completely destroyed. The friend he came to check on was safe, but most residents were suffering in the town hit the hardest by the 7.1-magnitude Hsinchu-Taichung Earthquake on April 21, 1935. It remains the deadliest in Taiwan’s recorded history, claiming around 3,300 lives and injuring nearly 12,000. The disaster completely flattened roughly 18,000 houses and damaged countless more. The social activist and
Over the course of former President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) 11-day trip to China that included a meeting with Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping (習近平) a surprising number of people commented that the former president was now “irrelevant.” Upon reflection, it became apparent that these comments were coming from pro-Taiwan, pan-green supporters and they were expressing what they hoped was the case, rather than the reality. Ma’s ideology is so pro-China (read: deep blue) and controversial that many in his own Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) hope he retires quickly, or at least refrains from speaking on some subjects. Regardless
Approaching her mid-30s, Xiong Yidan reckons that most of her friends are on to their second or even third babies. But Xiong has more than a dozen. There is Lucky, the street dog from Bangkok who jumped into a taxi with her and never left. There is Sophie and Ben, sibling geese, who honk from morning to night. Boop and Pan, both goats, are romantically involved. Dumpling the hedgehog enjoys a belly rub from time to time. The list goes on. Xiong nurtures her brood from her 8,000 square meter farm in Chiang Dao, a mountainous district in northern Thailand’s