The Cyborg Creature-Hybridity (2019) at Fox building (3/29 – 4/12)

Many colorful tights, clothes, thread, wires, aluminum, iron sticks, bicycle materials, LED lights, gear machine, percussion tools, metal, oil painting, pot, water in pot, pink water, music wires (harp and guitar)

Around 240 x 340 x 270cm, space size: around 1200 x 1200 x 2000cm (length x width x height)

“Bodily Constructs, Pilot Primer Demo, 2019”

The Exhibition organized by MICA Curatorial Practice MFA 2019

Curatorial Team: Hannah Davis, Ashley He, Tracey Jen, Eva Sailly, Minwen Wang

Although these artworks are sculptural, I displayed them in an installation format because of the huge space. The construction is based on an inorganic cochlear implant; the exhibition itself may cause an uncomfortable sensation. The tights express my tension and conversational limitations, and they connect to my tension in conversation. Also, I wanted to incorporate sound and kinetic expression as in Jean Tinguely’s artworks Le Transport (early 1960s), in order to express a monster. To recreate my life experience, I mixed colorful tights, pink water, clothes, and LED lights. The lights and colors show life and the sound. The movement from a kinetic machine made of aluminum, iron sticks, bicycle materials, a gear machine and wires creates sound that expresses the machine of my cochlear implant. I noticed that using sound, light and movement is important for me to express life in this exhibition. In addition, the shape takes the form of a monster from Greek mythology, a precursor to the cyborg. I mixed electronic tools because I wanted to represent being imperfectly mixed—like Therianthro and a Cyborg. This implies simultaneous life and non-life and the possibility that Therianthro and a Cyborg break the symbolization in our society and create an unclear border. I got the idea to express a mix between cyborg and the human body from Donna Haraway’s book, A Cyborg Manifesto (1984). The blood red color expresses my body and pain, but the creature is living strong. The shape of the cyborg explores how vivid sound and color relates to our inability to communicate a beautiful, but also possibly an uncomfortable, conversation piece. I would like to prompt audiences to think about the idea of conversation through this sculpture. Why do we fail at communication even when we speak the same language?