- April 5, 2011 Artist Lecture sponsored by the Computer and Information Science and Arts Administration Programs of the University of Oregon, Eugene
- April 6, 2011 Gallery Talk at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, sponsored by Cinema Pacific and JSMA, Eugene
- April 7, 2011 White Box Opening at 24 NW 1st Avenue, UO White Stag Block, Portland
Deemed a “First Thursday Pick” for April 2011 by Portland’s PORT online and called a “favorite pick” of Art Radar Asia when it was part of the 2009 Asian Art Biennial at the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, the current White Box exhibit, Bloated City | Skinny Language by Hong Kong aritst, Hung Keung is at the University of Oregon’s Portland White Box from April 5, 2011 -May 14, 2011.
Below is a photograph by UO Portland Digital Arts student and photographer, Tanya Tracy documenting Hung’s exhibit at the White Box:
Hung’s exhibit is a physically engaging and visual exploration of Chinese calligraphy and the ideology incorporated into the characters as a vehicle of expression. Chinese characters float across the wall with the use of two independently projected screens across a corridor-like space. This movement, captivating in itself, becomes even more entrancing when a viewer is introduced into this experimental media format. Walking into the space in front of the work, your body is integrated into the interactive piece with twin images of yourself which are recorded and transmitted onto the screen. Chinese characters swarm around your new doppelgangers whenever you move, migrating almost purposefully from screen to screen with speed and grace, and you are now immersed in this dialogue—a dichotomy meant to represent conflicting change and the transformation from traditional to modern.
The words that journey down and cloud around the viewer, now participant, cultivate a meaning that Hung wants us to interact with. “Words are for communication and cities are for living….Traditional Chinese characters became simplified characters; old cities have become new cities,” writes the artist. Commenting further on his interactive installation, Hung continues, “For me, a Chinese born in China and raised in Hong Kong, this creates conflicting desires making you feel love and hate all at once.” Standing amidst the work, one is meant to feel “caught between a rock and a hard place” as you see two of yourself at the same time (both right and left screens). Yet these situations are kept independent and dissimilar forcing one to feel and visualize the contradiction.
Following is a video from the work being exhibited in Shanghai, China and posted on YouTube by the artist, himself, and his studio, ImhkLab:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBPe0TqG9lY[/youtube]
The experience of this installation is, at once, beautiful and provocative. The characters, or words, migrate with speed and grace, almost purposefully, toward us as we engage with the piece carried into Hung’s experiment and into the realm of communication and meaning: “what things can become and how creating, deconstructing, and rebuilding can all indicate symbolic meaning.”
Interacting with Bloated City | Skinny Language is a fantastically illuminating experience seamlessly incorporating the physical form of the viewer/participant, and creating a genuine sense of wonder, in an exploration of new media formats. As University of Oregon Digital Arts professor Colin Ives notes, this exhibit “uses the capabilities that the space [of the Gray Box] was designed for.” And, indeed, it is due to the foresight of Professor Ives and the international connection he established several years ago with Hung that this work was able to be brought to the University of Oregon and is now on exhibit at the White Box.
In 2009, Professor Ives was in Hong Kong to install his project Nocturne, at the Microwave International New Media Arts Festival. Hung Keung saw Ives’ work and recognized it from having previously viewed it at the International Symposium of Electronic Arts in San Jose. Hung sought out the University of Oregon artist|professor and introduced himself. As it happened, Hung and Ives shared a mutual friend and quickly a bond was formed by way of shared artistic interests and mutually compatible philosophies. Hung took Ives to his studio where Ives would first see documentation of Bloated City | Skinny Language. Remembering the initial viewing, Ives comments, “I knew as soon as I saw it that it would be a perfect project for the Grey Box….” And, thus, began the work to bring Hung’s exhibit here to the University of Oregon—an effort spearheaded by Ives and supported by the Digital Arts Department, UO Computer and Information Science Department, the UO Arts Administration Program, Cinema Pacific, the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, University of Oregon Portland Programs, the UO School of Architecture and Allied Arts in Eugene and Portland, and Ace Hotel.
Recalling what initially intrigued Ives with Hung’s work, the artist-professor says that Hung “has a great way of approaching his work which manages to be both conceptual and humorous.” And, as one stands in Bloated City | Skinny Language, a participant in the fragments of language and brush strokes, encircled and enshrined by movement-sensitive characters, Hung hopes you are prompted to reflect on how you can locate yourself in your universe, both Heaven and Earth, and relate to the concepts of Dao (“The Dao gives birth to One. One gives birth to Two, Two gives birth to Three. Three gives birth to all things or a thousand things.”) A humorous aspect arises as one can turn and look back at one’s self overtaken by a flurry of animate letterforms, and encounter conflicting experiences: “change or unchanged, move or stay, to be or not to be.” You have been presented with the visual insight of both the simple and the complex, and both follow you, both inescapable.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BfFxcaeZ15o&feature=related[/youtube]
Exhibitions
JSMA | Where to Come From? Where To Go? | Video works by Hung Keung | Showing from April 5-June 19, 2011
White Box | Bloated City Skinny Language | Showing from April 5-May 14, 2011
post by sabina samiee, thank you to Colin Ives.