Liang Shih-yu (梁世佑), aka Rainreader Liang , ponders video games and their role in a recent stabbing spree on Taipei’s Mass Rapid Transit (MRT). His digital art show Who Pulled the Trigger: The Connotation and Context of Violent Video Games (誰來扣板機: 暴力電玩遊戲的內涵與理路) includes a short film, roundtable talks and a curated gaming experience that gives an overview of the industry’s history and controversies. Criticism against video-gaming arose after reports that MRT stabbing suspect Cheng Chieh (鄭捷) spent his free time on violent fiction and video games. “The exhibition conveys that the very player, rather than the game setting, makes the final decision of ‘shoot or not shoot,’” Liang says.
■ Digital Art Center (台北數位藝術中心), 180 Fuhua Rd, Taipei City (台北市福華路180號), tel: (02) 7736-0708. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 10am to 6pm. Free admission
■ Until Sept. 15
Photo courtesy of KMFA
The Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts (高雄市立美術館) invited 20 Taiwanese poets to write about iconic paintings and other visual art. At Marvelous Encounters in the Collection: On Wings of Music and Poetry (典藏奇遇記：藝享天開詩與樂), Lin Feng-chu’s (林鳳珠) lyrical Hoklo poem is shown with Chen Ruey-fu’s (陳瑞福) Fish Market (魚市). Sisters, by Chen Chiu-pai (陳秋白), provides the textual backdrop to Lin Bo-liang’s (林柏樑) portrait series on a red-light district. Select art is also displayed with original music compositions, film and commissioned recorded readings.
■ Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts (KMFA), 80 Meishuguan Rd, Greater Kaohsiung (高雄市美術館路80號), tel: (07) 555-0331. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 9am to 5pm. Admission: Free
■ Until Sept. 9
Photo courtesy of Eslite Gallery
Ho Ming-Kuei (何明桂) creates scenes based on fantasies and memory at As Dream, As Illusion (如夢如幻). Ho’s video works and other media are high-definition landscapes inspired by descriptions of psychical space — a painful personal memory, a recalled dream and a friend’s vivid account of a UFO sighting.
■ Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts (關渡美術館), 1 Xueyuan Rd, Taipei City (台北市學園路1號), tel: (02) 2896-1000 Ext. 2415. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 10am to 5pm
■ Until Sept. 14
The Sociology of Oneself (自我的社會學) features six artists from China who address themes from their lives. Contemporary Chinese artists don’t struggle against totalitarianism, but engage instead with a complex web of power and capitalism that they themselves are part of, writes curator Zhu Zhu (朱朱), winner of the 2011 CCAA (Chinese Contemporary Art Award, 中國當代藝術獎) for Critics. In this showcase of film, paintings and other media, artists deal with counterfeit goods, consumerism and industrial progress, which in Cheng Ran (程然) video installation The Fire and the Tree is linked to a form of stagnation.
■ 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 X1588. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 11am to 7pm
■ Until Sept. 21
Chinese fine artist Ying Tianqi (應天齊) displays 15 recent works at The Wall of Enigmas (迷牆). Ying paints and presses materials onto large boards so that they resemble the cracked walls of ancient ruins. The faux-preserved walls are a lament over the erosion of the physical sculptures along with their space and time.
■ Asia Art Center II (亞洲藝術中心二館), 93, Lequn 2nd Road, Taipei City (台北市樂群二路93號), tel: (02) 8502-7939. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 10am to 6:30pm
■ Until Sunday
Last week saw the appearance of another odious screed full of lies from the People’s Republic of China (PRC) Ambassador to Australia, Xiao Qian (肖千), in the Financial Review, a major Australian paper. Xiao’s piece was presented without challenge or caveat. His “Seven truths on why Taiwan always will be China’s” presented a “greatest hits” of the litany of PRC falsehoods. This includes: Taiwan’s indigenous peoples were descended from the people of China 30,000 years ago; a “Chinese” imperial government administrated Taiwan in the 14th century; Koxinga, also known as Cheng Cheng-kung (鄭成功), “recovered” Taiwan for China; the Qing owned
Jan. 20 to Jan. 26 Taipei was in a jubilant, patriotic mood on the morning of Jan. 25, 1954. Flags hung outside shops and residences, people chanted anti-communist slogans and rousing music blared from loudspeakers. The occasion was the arrival of about 14,000 Chinese prisoners from the Korean War, who had elected to head to Taiwan instead of being repatriated to China. The majority landed in Keelung over three days and were paraded through the capital to great fanfare. Air Force planes dropped colorful flyers, one of which read, “You’re back, you’re finally back. You finally overcame the evil communist bandits and
When 17-year-old Lin Shih (林石) crossed the Taiwan Strait in 1746 with a group of settlers, he could hardly have known the magnitude of wealth and influence his family would later amass on the island, or that one day tourists would be walking through the home of his descendants in central Taiwan. He might also have been surprised to see the family home located in Wufeng District (霧峰) of Taichung, as Lin initially settled further north in what is now Dali District (大里). However, after the Qing executed him for his alleged participation in the Lin Shuang-Wen Rebellion (林爽文事件), his grandsons were
I am kneeling quite awkwardly on a cushion in a yoga studio in London’s Shoreditch on an unseasonably chilly Wednesday and wondering when exactly will be the optimum time to rearrange my legs. I have an ice-cold mango and passion fruit kombucha beside me and an agonising case of pins and needles. The solution to pins and needles, I learned a few years ago, is to directly confront the agony: pull your legs out from underneath you, bend your toes up as high as they can reach, and yes, it will hurt far more initially, but then the pain subsides.
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