Injector after Null
@Taipei Fine Arts Museum 2021
Brief Introduction
延續2017年個展「injector before Null」中作品《sandbox》的概念，試圖利用空白的展覽空間，藉由攔截與轉址觀眾行動裝置電信商的通訊訊號後取得臨時號碼，再以簡訊傳達文字訊息來闡述及導引觀眾去窺探數件被認為不在場的作品；簡訊文字多為關於“人們相信但始終無法確認，卻又覺得存在的事物”。
本次展覽藉由“似有非無”的概念作為後續的發想。許多事物需經由人類對其定義或是在人類的發現並歸類後而存在；對於這些人類所相信的事物，從無法應證到應證之後，我們藉由想像力突破和實現了許多原先以為的幻象，並以一定的程度應用在科技、經濟、文化上。本展試圖藉此討論人類對於真實性與永恆性的認知，以及人類作為對於自然界擁有最大影響力的生物，是否需要更加小心的去應證人類當今所創造的任何事物，又或是該讓其不經意地在時間與自然環境的帶動下，不斷地重生與死亡。
此次展出的《discharged what you charged: room edition》一作，將上次個展「同化者：Assimilator」中的作品加以更新，以強化觀者對於時間與空間的存在性；在其他作品中，則以觀看者的行為作為空間中物件動作的觸發與呼應機制，進而去強調在還未有人類的觀察行為下，周遭物質所產生的變動，以及人對於觀察與發現後所產生對於事件、物件、現象的定義之間的關係，以此呼應前次展覽「injector before Null 」所希望討論的概念。
‘injector after Null’ takes as a starting point the artwork ‘sandbox’, presented as part of Hsien-Yu CHENG’s 2017 solo exhibition ‘injector before Null’. By intercepting and redirecting radio signals from the audience’s mobile devices provided by local carriers, ‘sandbox’ seeked to make use of the empty exhibition space to obtain a temporary phone number by which specially elaborated SMS messages were transmitted in order to guide the audience to explore several works apparently absent from the site. Most of the text messages concerned “things that seem to exist even if the viewer cannot verify their existence from beginning to end”.
This idea of “seemingly existing things” becomes an inspiration for the current exhibition’s conceptual evolution. Things come into existence primarily by means of human discovery, verification, definition and categorization. Imagination allows us to see through and put into practice what is presumably taken for illusion and apply it to attain a certain level of technology, economy and culture. This exhibition attempts to provoke a discussion on human recognition of veracity and eternity. In the meanwhile, as the most influential creature over Mother Nature, shall we be more wary or vigilant to approve and accept every human creation nowadays? Or shall we instead just let these phenomena be carried away driftlessly by the tide of time and natural surroundings, by the endless cycle of death and rebirth?
As a revision of the work presented in CHENG’s 2020 solo exhibition ‘Assimilator’, ‘discharged what you charged: room edition’ is designed to reinforce the viewer’s awareness around the perceptual experience of time and space. In the other installations, the objects distributed in the space perform and/or react according to the viewer’s behavior, operating, therefore, as triggering and echo mechanisms. This brings to the fore the different variations of the surrounding substances often overlooked by humans as well as the observation and discovery of the predetermined interrelationships between events, objects and phenomena. It is in this sense that ‘injector after Null’ invokes the concepts and preoccupations initiated in the previous solo exhibition ‘injector before Null’.
