If watching Fritz Lang’s 1927 Metropolis accompanied by electronic music sounds like a good way to spend the weekend, one needs look no further than “On Site,” an art event organized by the Taipei Culture Foundation featuring a series of performances, concerts and exhibitions that strive to break down established boundaries between art forms. All activities are free.
The festivities, which will last for three weeks, open today with music performances by local indie bands and audiovisual shows at the Huashan Grand Green (華山大草原), located at the intersection of Linsen North Road and Beiping East Road.
Fast-rising sound artist Yao Chung-han (姚仲涵) will kick-start the series of visual-audio performances with his latest work inspired by Chinese ink painting, followed by Canadian artist Patrick Doan’s experiment that weds Chopin’s Etude No. 12 in C minor with animation.
More excitement will come when the restored full-length version of Metropolis is screened to the accompaniment of avant-garde electronic music performed live by French duo Xavier Garcia and Guy Villerd.
The event represents the organizer’s attempt to provide a platform for artists who do not play by the rules.
“Over the years, we have received a large number of artists who work in a wide range of fields. But in Taiwan, we rarely see events devoted to the hybrid, cross-over breed of arts. For example, music festivals showcase musicians, whereas arts events like “Lacking Sound” feature only sound artists. I think the event’s biggest attraction is to present artist and art works that play with the established and bring out something new,” said Joanna Sun (孫育晴), manager of the foundation’s artist-in-residence programming and media communication division.
Commissioned by the Ministry of Culture to manage the city’s three residential art centers — Taipei Artist Village, Treasure Hill Artist Village and Grass Mountain Arts Village — one of the foundation’s responsibilities is to facilitate exchanges and participation through artist-residencies and artist exchange programs.
The idea of hybridity is further illustrated through a series of collaborations among sound artists, musicians and DJs from Taiwan and abroad. Their live performances are set to hit the Taipei Artist Village in the first two weekends of next month.
Several sound installation exhibitions, sound experiments and performances are to also be held at various venues close to National Taiwan University and National Taiwan Normal University, including Shelter (防空洞), a basement performance and music space, and bookstore Joie Eternelle (永樂座).
A closing party will take place on Oct. 14 at Treasure Hill and will feature a number of indie bands.
More information about On Site can be obtained on the Web site at www.artistvillage.org.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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