Art Central’s 2024 Video Art programme, Future Visions, explores new art from the field of moving images, a forward-thinking showcase of leading artists who have been invited to present recent works on the Fair’s LED wall. Hailing from diverse parts of the planet, from Africa to Australia and Europe to East Asia, the artists selected are innovative thinkers who employ the dynamic and creative nature of the audio-visual medium to address individual imaginings of the future.
Jessi Ali Lin (b. 1993, Taiwan/USA)
Hsin-Yu Chen (b. 1994, Taiwan)
Semiotics of the Home, 2023
Single-channel video
7’55”
A homage to the iconic feminist parody Semiotics of the Kitchen by Martha Rosler, this video work probes the paradoxical relationship between industrially built structures and the intimate domestic spaces they house, confronting the mechanised Sisyphean labour that constructs our everyday reality. Working with the transformative material process at the waste stream, the artists employ a refuse dump as a metaphor for how meaning and value are constructed, deconstructed, and reconstructed in our daily lives. Structures that once stratified and divided spaces, people, social groups, and activities are collapsed by ways of dumping, sorting, and recycling.
Luke Conroy (b. 1990, Devonport, Australia)
Anne Fehres (b. 1988, The Hague, the Netherlands)
Unfolding, 2023
Colour 4K video, stereo sound
14’52”
Unfolding is an experimental short film reflecting on the relationship between nature and humanity through an absurd VR yoga session from the year 2070. Reversing the typical human versus nature hierarchy, an offscreen narrator – who we assume to be the personification of air – gives instructions to the film’s subject, revealing a surreal scene. An engagement with the ‘other-than-human’ creates a meaningful opportunity to embrace imagination and reflect on previously ingrained assumptions towards the natural world. Unfolding encourages viewers to rethink their passive perspective on nature, as it portrays nature as an active force that affects them.
Francois Knoetze (b. 1989, Africa)
Russel Hlongwane (b. 1989, Africa)
Amy Louise Wilson (b. 1991, USA)
Dzata: The Institute of Technological Consciousness, 2023
8’25”
A creative research project by three South African artists, this video investigates vernacular technological practices found across the African continent. Presented in the form of a fictional institute and archive, the project foregrounds the deep-rooted relationship of science, technology and innovation with that of indigenous knowledge. An intertextual conversation between the documentary and the poetic, the video is a pseudo-anthropological take on what constitutes modern technology in the post-colonial era.
Zike He (b. 1990, China)
Random Access, 2023
Video
14’20
© VH AWARD by Hyundai Motor Group
Commissioned by VH AWARD of Hyundai Motor Group
Random Access presents a thought-provoking narrative set in the city of Guiyang, a hub of big data infrastructures. The story unfolds after an unexpected crash and reboot of the city’s central data centre and delves into the intricate relationship between memory and digital technology through a post-apocalyptic lens. The title, Random Access, alludes to both the technical term used for memory processing as well as the film’s exploration of memory in a society where technology has become an integral part of our lives. Random Access raises intriguing questions about the role of technology in shaping our memories and how we perceive the world around us.
Au Sow Yee (b. 1978, Malaysia) × Chen Yow-Ruu (b. 1984, Taiwan) (Her Lab Space)
Aerofuture, 2023
7’54”
Courtesy of the artists
In Aerofuture, a rock band of mutant bats, crocodiles, and wild boars engages in a time-travelling conversation with Jim Thompson, the Thai silk tycoon who mysteriously disappeared in the Moonlight Villa on Cameron Highlands in 1967. Interweaving retro-sci-fi space-time complete with secret codes and ruptures of time, the short film unveils resonances and ghosts of Cold War power struggles.
Aerofuture is part of the collaborative project If, a Family Trip initiated by Chen Yow-Ruu and Au Sow Yee in 2020.
The work was commissioned by New Taipei City Art Museum.
Elisa Strinna (b. 1982, Italy)
The Antarctic Gardener, 2022
24′
An androgynous scientist lives confined in Antarctica, taking care of an artificial ecosystem for space colonisation. Virtual relationships, artificial suns, and nutrients dissolved in the air are the core of a crystallised world pervaded by the emotional temperature of extreme isolation. The Antarctic Gardener blurs the boundaries between reality and fiction, delving into a future that already feels present, reminiscent of science fiction narratives.
Yuyan Wang (b. 1989, China)
Look On the Bright Side, 2023
17′
In an age of wire and string, futuristic visions anchor in lithic time. In the dark, people are driven to shine in the most spectacular ways. Light, emitted from our digital extensions, has roots traversing millions, even billions of years.
