Happy Paradise
(2016 TAIPEI BIENNIAL)
2016, Sep. 10th
The current focus of my art practice is about responding to the remains of changes caused by power. We live in a world where the landscapes of power continuously influence the way we perceive it. This system works so well that it somehow makes people lose track of how it has brought us to where we are now. What attracts my attention are the remains left by power, and the way people recognize them. Based on that, I try to mark out the presence of bodies in specific spots, to create a sensation of change, and how every individual relates to the changing process.
However, the site that the Taipei Fine Arts Museum (TFAM) is located on makes it difficult to tell what it was before based on remains left in the space. I assume the reason why there is no clue about its predecessor at first sight is that this very spot has been treated as an “official site” for decades. When I say “official site”, what I refer to, is a site where political authority builds up a landscape or creates an image to emphasize the way it wants to be perceived— and political authority controls a lot of resources to overwrite the landscape or to make the scene “return to zero”, especially when its priority changes. If I want to get more information about the changing process based upon the remains, I need to expand my search to a bigger area. In the case of TFAM, the bigger area refers to the Yuanshan area.
Before TFAM was built, the land was put to a military use as the general headquarters of the United States Taiwan Defense Command. Previous to that, it was planned as parkland in the Japanese Colonization period. During that time, the Japanese preferred adopting a “modern western urban plan / structure ” in its colonies, and the park was one of the symbols of modern society. Yuanshan Park, “the first park in Taiwan”, was built up because Japanese Crown Prince Hirohito （later known as Emperor Shōwa）was planning a trip to tour the Taiwanese colony. When the Chinese Nationalist government took over Taiwan, they also took over the ex-ruler’s urban plan. However since they were making Taiwan an “anti-communist base.” instead of using the parkland for its original purpose, they decided to take the most of it for military use.
Zhongshen N. Ave., next to TFAM, then called Chokushi Kaidō（Imperial Envoy Road), was also built up for the Japanese Crown Prince Hirohito, to make it easier for him to pay a visit to the Taiwanese Shrine. Decades later, Chiang Kai-shek and Dwight D. Eisenhower were saluted by crowds on the same avenue on the way to the Grand Hotel. 26 years later, when the animals were moved from Yuanshan Zoo to Mucha Zoo, they were greeted by crowds again. Within the last decade, Taipei Expo Park (one street away from TFAM), was promoted by the previous Taipei mayor Hau Lung-pin, who strongly urged Taipei citizens to engage in “Taipei Beautiful”events there to prove that Taipei is an “international city”. What I try to point out here is that no matter whether it’s based on colonial, military, capital, or even more acceptable reasons, like using the land to educate the public (for example the Yuanshan Zoo, TFAM or Taipei Children's Amusement Park), “official sites” still tend to maximize political authority’s will.
The changing landscapes of the Yuanshan area I mentioned above, only cover the modern history that has happened in the past 100 years. The vertical stratum composed of cultural layers excavated at Yuanshan Site (see the following picture), presents the wreckages left in this area by humans in a chronological order through a longer time period. The Shell Mound, the representation of prehistoric Yuanshan Culture formed by the abandoned shells left by prehistoric residents, explains that this region was used as a landfill thousands years ago. The contrast between “official site” and “landfill” is very fascinating to me, these 2 landscapes show the different kinds of “overwriting process” as time goes by, meanwhile echoing each other. In showing all of this information, my goal was not to do a historical research of the Yuanshan area, but to use it to define the overwriting property of the “changing process.”
TFAM is a place where the process of overwriting a space is illustrated by the visiting artists work. In the project, I want to set “2016, TFAM” as the zero coordinate (0,0) in time and space. Using it as an origin to point out various remains, landscapes, or events left by different time periods in the Yuanshan area. In my opinion, the best spot in TFAM to present these relative time-space positions is here:
The audience will see the surrounding environment through the large window panels in the entry hall of TFAM. I am going to print out 3 images of historic events that correspond to Zhongshan N. Ave. and stick them on the left hand window panel. These 3 scenes would be the events that I mentioned before: the car that the Japanese Crown Prince Hirohito took driving through Chokushi Kaidō, Chiang Kai-shek and Dwight D. Eisenhower waving to crowds on Zhongshen N. Ave., and the parade of the Taipei Zoo moving (see the picture). Each event reflects a different focus of power.
The numbers on the images mark out the time difference and direction / distance between “2016, TFAM” and the events. For example take the scene of Hirohito’s car as it is ready to drive over the Zhongshen Bridge, it happened 93 years ago, 0.2 kilometers northeast of TFAM. Besides these 3 scenes, other remains/landscapes/events are also going to be marked out on the floor, following the same logic (see the following picture). The project is called “Happy Paradise”, named after a song
（https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=il_Yd1irRgE）that was specially made for the Taipei Zoo moving parade (which was designed as a city-scale celebration) and sung by several hot pop music singers of the era. I would like to use this song as background music at the entrance of TFAM when I perform events for this project.
The setting I mentioned above is the background stage for this project. By marking out the historic elements, I will reveal the overwriting property of the “changing process” of this place. In this setting, I will invite the audience to allow me to trace their body outlines in black marker on the window panel. What I need to consider here is how to leave the body outlines, in order to correspond precisely to the property of the changing process.
What happens to the “official site” is that the space would be overwritten efficiently, it also implies that any kind of unfitting remains would be removed. I want to illustrate the depriving process by applying some translucent goo inside of the participant’s body outline, and then removing the goo that represents the body’s remains. I have experimented with several types of material that could be suitable to refill the inside of the body outline and then peeled off from the windows, so far a customized silicone is the most practical one. It is also worth mentioning that when the human-body-shaped silicone is peeled off from the windows, the tinted window film will also be mostly removed with it (see the picture of the first experiment’s result, in real practice the black marker body outline will be preserved.) This will cause a filter effect from the rest of the background window film. The reason why I would like to keep this filter effect is that as a visual metaphor, it achieves two goals that respond to this project precisely. One is it breaks up the delusion, reinforced and resulted by the repeating “returning to zero” process, that things are presented in a clear and straightforward way. The other is what an individual would leave behind in the big scale time-space change— it might not be as easy to distinguish as a black-marker outline working as a representation of an official record, but the absence of the film floats from the background like a ghost.
The next step is to think of how to deal with the “body remains”. That’s where I bring back the comparison of overwriting property between “official site” and “landfill”. Based upon that, I will pile up these “body remains”, to echo the chronological stratum made of abandoned objects.
The order of the procedure will be as follows (See the figures): first of all, among the re-mapping items on the floor, the participant (called Participant A) will choose a location (for example, Yuanshan Zoo) that has a special meaning for him. I will have him write down his memory / interpretation related to the location he has chosen on the TFAM ticket (for example, his girlfriend broke up with him on the day that Yuanshan Zoo moved to Mucha)(See Fig.1). Participant A will then find a place in front of the windows where he wants his body to be traced, and decide on a posture based on what he wrote on his ticket (for example, the posture of begging his ex back) (See Fig.2). I, as an artist (and also to a certain degree an “official representative” of TFAM), will trace the outline of Participant A’s body with a marker on the window panel and write down the date and time. As if doing an “official record” of every participant for TFAM. After that, Participant A will tape his ticket inside of his outline, and leave some trash for the next participant (called Participant B) before he leaves (See Fig.3). Participant B will arrange the abandoned trash left by Participant A inside of Participant A’s outline. After choosing a dye and mixing it with the silicone, Participant B (with my assistance) will apply his own homemade silicone inside of Participant A’s outline (See Fig.4). After the silicone has dried, Participant B will peel Participant A’s “body remain” (called as “body remain A”) off of the window with the ticket and the abandoned trash, writing down the date and time on “body remain A” (See Fig.5), and put it on the spot in front of the window where Participant B wants his own outline left. After that, Participant B will repeat what Participant A had done before: finding a location marked on the floor, writing his personal message on his ticket, holding a pose (stepping on “body remain A”) at the spot he chooses in front of the window for me to trace, taping the ticket inside of his outline, and leaving some objects for the next participant (See Fig.6). This process of “peeling the previous participant’s body remain and leaving a body outline for the next participant” will be repeated throughout the whole show (See Fig.7).
The participants do not just provide their bodies as depicted modes, but construct their own continuant interpretation of the “official version”, by viewing other people’s body outlines, by filling the traces of absence, and by deciding where their outline will be left. That’s what I would like to accomplish in this project.