A much-needed platform for discussion on digital art forms, the exhibition features the work of internationally renowned and emerging French and Chinese artists. The show is a timely, visionary exploration of the hybridisation of technology and art, and continues until 31 August 2014 in Shanghai.
Tsang Kin Wah, ‘The Fourth Seal’, 2010. Image courtesy the artist and K11 Art Foundation.
“Metamorphosis of the Virtual 5 + 5″ is curated by Paris-based independent curator David Rosenberg and co-produced by Joanne Kim from the K11 Art Foundation. After seeing Rosenberg’s presentation of Pia MYrvoLD’s work FLOW at the Venice Biennale last year, K11 founder Adrian Cheng approached Rosenberg for a broader exploration of digital art. The fruits of their collaboration are now resplendent in the third floor bunker-like basement of Shanghai’s K11 Art Mall.
Immersive universes
The cavernous exhibition space is completely dark and lit only by the works themselves. Cityweekend.com.cn reports that curator Rosenberg described each piece as a world within itself,
with its own ecosystem and set of laws yet connected according to themes or lines of force.
Miguel Chevalier, ‘The Origin of the World’, 2014. Image courtesy the artist and K11 Art Foundation.
The first piece, the largest among them all, is a spectacular interactive virtual reality by Miguel Chevalier, entitled The Origin of the World (2014). Presented across cinema-sized screens and accompanied by a musical soundtrack, The Origin of the World immerses viewers in a universe of oscillating, swirling psychedelic patterns. In this piece, according to the press release,
cells and microorganisms proliferate, divide and merge at a sometimes slow, sometimes furious pace.
For Chevalier, the digital enables him to get closer to nature by drawing inspiration from the virtual process of growth and transformation. Viewers interact directly with the composition of images and sounds: if they walk quickly towards the screens, the soundtrack and patterns accelerate, whereas walking away triggers more lyrical music and softer patterns.
Maurice Benayoun, ‘Emotion Winds’, 2014. Image courtesy the artist and K11 Art Foundation.
Maurice Benayoun’s Emotion Winds (2014) also uses the video form to link the real and the virtual in a mesmerising way. The installation incorporates wind data from 3,200 global cities and moves in real time according to the ‘emotions’ of the world. The resulting work is graceful and ethereal, like a Chinese ink drawing.
Miao Xiaochun, ‘Microcosm’, 2010. Image courtesy the artist and K11 Art Foundation.
Miao Xiaochun‘s Microcosm (2009) employs 3D computer technology to create a complex and layered montage of images and virtual realities. Appropriating and adapting historical artworks, which include classical Renaissance paintings as well as traditional Chinese art, Miao creates a unique conceptual world of idiosyncratic interpretation. The piece is accompanied by a CGI theo-technological opera inspired by Hieronymus Bosch.
Tsang Kin Wah‘s Fourth Seal (2010) is part of the series Seven Seals (2009 – ongoing), which features multiscreen floor-to-ceiling projections using light, motion and sound to shroud the viewer in an ever-expanding and contracting space. The piece begins with one line of projected white text from the Christian Bible (Revelation 6:8), which soon multiples and engulfs the entire room. Tsang was recently announced as Hong Kong’s representative for the Venice Biennale in 2015.
Pascal Haudressy, ‘Saint-François’, 2010. Image courtesy the artist and K11 Art Foundation.
Smaller worlds
French artist Pascal Haudressy presents smaller digital works, which are by no means less captivating. The Caravaggio-inspired Saint-François (2010) belongs to a series entitled Tableaux, which takes its roots in historical paintings. The airy, bristling figure appears static at first sight, but closer inspection reveals the almost imperceptible rising and falling of breath and life.
Aaajiao, ‘Object 1′, 2014. Image courtesy the artist and K11 Art Foundation.
Aaaijao, one of China’s foremost digitial artists, creates works that retain a sense of immersion whilst keeping the viewer at arm’s length. His art often interrogates the relationship between man and machine, as in Object 1 (2014), which comments on how modern humans live their lives through screens and devices.
Pia MyrvoLD, ‘FLOW’, 2011. Image courtesy the artist and K11 Art Foundation.
Pia MYrvoLD’s FLOW (2011), which prompted the K11-Rosenberg collaboration, uses multiscreen digital mapping software to build animated sculptures and abstract imagery. The looping sequences and transforming landscapes of hues, textures and emotions aim to depict the passage from a culture of stability to that of flow and instability.
ORLAN, ‘Skinned Liberty’, 2013. Image courtesy the artist and K11 Art Foundation.
Internationally known for her performance art and in particular her use of surgery as an artistic medium, ORLAN joins the exhibition of digital art with Skinned Liberty (2013), a video projection of the slow-motion movements of flayed bodies. The acid green prosthesis is reminiscent of transparent plexiglass, giving the figure a cyborg-esque appearance as it assumes the position of the Statue of Liberty.
Re-positioning digital art
ORLAN asserts that she is not a digital artist. As Rosenberg reminds the viewer in his essay for the show, quoted by Ocula,
the essence of each work does not lie as much in its technological character as in the heart and mind of each artist.
For both Rosenberg and K11, the exhibition does not hope to achieve a re-consideration of digital art per se as a separate genre in an isolated IT ghetto. Instead, the show aims to position digital art as a serious medium that is inextricably tied up, affected by and contributing to the evolving contemporary art scene. In addition to ORLAN’s work, Rosenberg points out the historical trajectories prevalent in Chevalier’s oeuvre. Haudressy’s reference to Caravaggio further fulfills the hopes of the exhibition.
“Metamorphosis of the Virtual” was an expression created by French writer and philosopher Christine Buci-Glucksmann in an essay about MYrvoLD, which situates the digital as a substance that is alive with constant flux and change. The selection of artworks in this exhibition successfully introduces a critical, reviving dialogue for digital art, long sidelined as an obscure genre in the context of mainstream art. At a time when we are still coming to terms with the speed and violence of technology even as it encroaches upon our daily lives, “Metamorphosis” invites us to ponder upon how the digital relates to us. As artist Benayoun said:
In some ways technology doesn’t yield truth, it brings about questions.
Michele Chan
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Related Topics: Chinese artists, French artists, digital art, new media, events in Shanghai, picture feasts
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