B O O M ! 水下的藝術家
Taiwan-Australia New Media Arts
快速與凝結新媒體的交互作用─台澳新媒體藝術展



Exhibitions | Conferences
2007 International New Media Arts Festival Taipei | Media Infinity: Taiwan-Australia New Media Arts Forum | TNUA 28 May - 30 May 2007
Boom! An Interplay of Fast and Frozen Permutations in New Media | Taiwan-Australia New Media Arts Exhibition | TNUA International Exhibition Hall, Taipei 28 May - 9 Jun 2007 | Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts, Taipei 15 Jun - 8 Jul 2007

WEB LINKS 藝術節網址
http://ma.ntua.edu.tw/maa/NewMediaArts/
http://kdmofa.tnua.edu.tw
http://140.109.240.87/exhibition/exhibition_introduce_53.htm

PRINT MEDIA | EXHIBITION REVIEWS
Taiwan Journal, Projecting the Underwater World as Art, The News @ Depth, Divenews.com, 4 July 2007

Shih, Sandra, Taiwan-Australian cooperation creates new species of art, Taiwan Journal Vol. XXIV, No. 25, 29 June 2007
Chun-Te, Lin, United Daily News, 2 June 2007 http://udn.com/NEWS/READING/X5/3870922.shtml
聯合新聞網| 閱讀藝文| 聯副‧創作| 新 媒體藝術節》BOOM! 快速與凝結- ... 更有那難以歸類的「其他形式」，例如澳洲藝術家Sarah Jane Pell的作品《涉水而行》（Walking with Water），具有專業潛水員身分的藝術家在作品中 成為表演者，她潛入...

媒體藝術不再止於傳統攝影與錄像，此次藝術節的主軸「BOOM！ ... 更有那難以歸類的「其他形式」，例如澳洲藝術家Sarah Jane Pell的作品《涉水而行》（Walking with ...
cheng00000.wordpress.com/2007/06/03/圖-袁廣鳴，城市失格/ - 35k

TELEVISION
Hai Chen, Micro + Playground, Taiwan digital art and information center, Taipei





Media Infinity 媒體表现
Taiwan-Australia New Media Arts Forum

The most common themes of the 2007 International New Media Festival Taipei were focused on new media definition, its boarders and bridges with old media territories. The joint Australia/Taiwan curatorial team had invited new media artists and academics advancing projects as broad as architecture, net art, political cartooning, illustration, animation, media performance and video/film to speak, show their work and introduce their students and faculty projects. While Prof. Chen, Chih-Cheng | NTUA | Chairman Graduate Program in Fine Arts contextualised our indulgences by concluding in a Baudrillard style that 'nothing is real' and reciting the new media mantra 'similacrum, similacrum, similacrum...' we, collectively, attempted to betwixt similacrua to stimulate debate about the culturally diverse territories of new media. We shared our various ideas, aesthetics and technologies and enthusiastically conveyed our resolve for future collaboration, manifestation, expansion, explosion and implosion across many art and cultural terrains. I liken our academic fixations to tertiary memory: a term raised by Dr. Catherine Summerhayes | ANU | Professor Media Cultures, referring to ‘experience that has been recorded and is available to consciousness without ever having lived that memory’. This is not a criticism, on the contrary, it is an acknowledgment that our conversations are just beginning. The seed has been planted in our conciousness and, in tertiary memory, all dreams are real and media infinate.

"Art is the food of hybridity. It is translating and transporting the modes of one culture into another, lifting bits of both and mixing. Sampling is not just one of the techniques of the digital, it has became a way of life. And we have D.J.'s of culture, albeit operating at longer-term rhythms. What can people do but sample in an environment where everything is always available?" - Derrick de Kerchhove



表现文献 Is everything always available? Chairing a panel titled 'Comics v.s. New Media', Jayne Pilling | TNUA | Prof. Dept. Multimedia and Animation Arts highlighted the importance of a) time and b) readership in relation to the moving image and the purpose of animation. Prof. Pilling also went on to encapsulate the crux of the entire conference, its context and timeliness to question the ‘animatability’ of new media. I agree. I also agree that as artists, we have a responsibility to question the 'animatability' of ideas, audiences, cultures and states. Conversely, considering political, societal, technical, metaphysical and economic freedoms is one way of understanding the editorial constraints placed on new media ecologies. This role could not be better articulated than through the works of comic satirists, political cartoonists and critical media commentators. Lucien Leon | ANU | Lecturer: Centre for New Media Arts spoke on ‘Political Cartoons and the Electronic Media: Retooling the Printed Political Cartoon to a New Media Context’. Leon introduced his own works and illustrated some of the problems of Kerchhove's longer-term rhythm D.J's. Political Cartoonists, he argued, need quick-response platforms to disseminate socio/political responses to current news events constantly relayed on multi-networked international formats. I could not avoid making the links between R.O.C Taiwan's censorship arrangements and Australia's anti-Sedition Laws for instance but Leon reminds us that these juristictions are challenged by new editorial, ethical and legal territories in an age of blogs, e-lists, and emerging wifi and blutooth technologies that are designed to enable free-speech and new authors outside of commercial and state-sanctioned publication. Creatively exploiting the portable, private platform of iPod technology, Leon's animated cartoons (shown the accompanying exhibition) are a strong and critical commentary on contemporary Australian political health. Despite the success of the pieces, Leon explains the need for further development of quick-response new media format advocating for greater opportunities for collaboration and simplification of digital processes to reduce the cost and time to the artist. He looks foward to an increase in immediate and spontaneous publication options, greater bandwidth access and cost minimization strategies to protect, and promote, the role of the political cartoonists in ever-increasing new media societies.




Exhibition Installation, TNUA International Exhibition Hall, Taipei 28 May - 9 Jun 2007

In his paper title and ‘From illustration to Animation – using ‘A Fish with a Smile’ as example’, C. Jay Shih | NTUA | Associate Professor /Chairman Dept. Multimedia and Animation Arts introduced the issues associated with animating traditional media for contemporary audiences in Taiwan. Prof. Shih lamented that students are criticized for being too artistic and not reaching new audiences, and describes his own strategies for finding a balance and making progress. He explained the "artist-as-mother by artificial insemination" role in the collaboration with a publicly sanctioned political cartoonist called Jimmy and the processes he took as the artist/producer attempting to transform a traditional and culturally iconic illustration into a commercial animation. Prof. Shih took the idea of ‘A Fish with a Smile’ to a national short film festival and offered to produce the promotional ‘trailer’ for event. His project proposed to reinforce the message of the festival, flatter and adopt the earlier works of the original illustrator Jimmy and attract endorsement and investment for further developments in new media animations.

On 'Student filmmaking in the era of New Media', Gene-Fon Liao | NTUA | Assoc. Prof. & Chairman Motion Picture, says independent and student films are flourishing in Taiwan compared to commercial films. Taiwan's schools are modeled on the US system and students are able to produce short films in groups of four. Awareness in new media academia includes skill-transfer in: wholesale digital media; computer generated image; program development, production management, financing, financing, marketing and distribution treating projects like business/ enterprise; moving image mate ship based on animatics etc.; looking at the viewing experience HD or HDV filmmaking compared to digital and user-end experiences for example U-Tube users thinking that 10minute films are a bit too long and understanding the need to capture their audience imagination upfront. Nevertheless, Professor Lion admits that digital film screening in Taiwan and digital media training is slow, and student professionals are actually advocating for film-based traditions. Furthermore, students are falling back on the past and using traditional printing as animation fodder for example and there reveals a trend of Neo Spectacle and Neo Narrative genres. Online blogs are the best marketing tools for student works be they spectacles, hyper real, hypertext, non-linear and or animated digital film and video media.

More to follow...
In her paper on the 'The Cinematic in New Media Art', Dr. Summerhayes might suggest that the historic language of cinemedia contextualises all above-mentioned practices and experiences....
Chen, Chih-Cheng, 'Inspection and Examination of Visual Realm of putting imagine creation into practice' critiqued the phenomenological sociology and behavior of film - an apt parallel here - to describe the processes used to install viewing reality through 'a theatre in crystalisation'...
Summerhayes also argued that virtual space is real because the impact on the viewer is real. Considering the ‘animatability’ of Summerhayes’ virtual/real space, I recognize the simultaneous, parallel argument: virtual space is equally illusory because the impact on the viewer is also illusory; therefore our engagement with virtual space is a dynamic sensory but pervasive relationship like the ‘overall affect’ described by astronauts in outer space...

Boom!
An Interplay of Fast & Frozen Permutations in New Media Exhibition


Australian artists and hosts, Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts, Taipei 15 Jun - 5 Aug 2007


Exhibition Reviews
Taiwan-Australian cooperation creates new species of art
Taiwan Journal Vol. XXIV, No. 25, 29 June 2007
Publication Date：06/28/2007
By Sandra Shih
Beams of light from the seabed shone like stage spotlights, thus announcing the opening of a piece of grand marine theater. Green seaweed wriggled in passing currents, and bubbles ascending to the surface created a rhythmic background tempo. With everything ready and in place, the leading lady elegantly made her entrance. Rather than the starfish or clownfish one might have imagined for this aquatic performance, all the actors were butterflies whose usual home would be grasslands or mountain forests. Had some new species evolved that was capable of breathing and flying underwater? Not exactly: This was an example of new-media art, where anything is possible.

Creator of this particular fantasy world was Lin Pey-chwen, professor of multimedia and animation arts at the National Taiwan University of Arts. Her multimedia installation titled "Virtual Creation" used computer software, such as Flash and Maya, to produce special effects and offer audiences the chance to experience the power of images, Lin said June 14. This was one of several dozen works included in the "Boom! An Interplay of Fast and Frozen Permutation in New Media" exhibition that opened May 28 at NTUA in the Taipei suburb of Banciao, before moving to the Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts at the Taipei National University of the Arts June 5.

Part of a larger project, the exhibition grew out of collaboration between NTUA and the Centre for New Media Arts at the Australian National University. This began when teachers in the multimedia and animation arts department participated in academic seminars in 2004, followed by NTUA President Huang Kuang-nan setting up a formal cooperative relationship with ANU last year to promote further academic exchange activities. One result is the current event, as its subtitle of "Taiwan-Australia New Media Arts Exhibition" indicates.

Lin recalled a group of students took their work to ANU last year and participated in seminars about the development of new media. Through this kind of exchange of ideas, a constructive relationship was established, she said, and school representatives started to consider holding an exhibition in Taiwan as well. "In 2004, we became twin schools and have always sought to expand our friendship. Since then, staff and students have gone to Australia to participate in various related programs," she added, which is why ANU proposed focusing on the topic of new media for this year's exhibition.

Forty teaching and postgraduate student artists exhibited works ranging from animation, digital images, video and interactive installations to performance art. The range was kept intentionally broad in order to make visitors aware of how diverse media today are compared with traditional channels such as television. Artists expressed their concerns on a range of topics, such as issues of nationalism, gender, ecology and so forth. Discussing the variety of subject matter, Lin said, "Since this is the first time we held a bilateral new-media exhibition, we did not want to confine ourselves to one specific topic but, rather, wanted to maximize the effects new media could achieve."

Digital images offered a more dynamic feeling than static paintings done on 2-D surfaces, she said, and they often made use of distinctive color effects to attract people's immediate attention.

Lin's own work used moving images to create her underwater fantasy world on a wall-sized screen in front of visitors, while the room's remaining five walls were painted dark to simulate the feeling of diving in deep water. On a platform in the center of the room, like a rock protruding from the seabed, was a control panel for visitors to color the butterfly wings, Lin explained. Once they had achieved a result with which they were satisfied, their butterflies could fly onto the "underwater" screen. Visitors' participation and comments reconfirmed Lin's belief in human beings' innate desire for artistic creativity. "Most people buried themselves in the coloring process and ignored the abnormal existence of butterflies in the ocean," Lin noted.

"Virtual Creation" was, she added, a criticism of the shortcomings of civilization and represented her protest against new media. "Not every new-media artist appreciates the medium," she stressed, "some of us just use it to point out social problems." Her work, for example, was directed against those people who wanted to manipulate animals through cloning, she said. Humankind's disrespect for nature resulted in serious disasters like the Sept. 21 earthquake of 1999, she claimed. The earthquake reminded her that unlawful pursuit of personal profit could lead to destruction, and that without well-meaning intentions, modern technology did not necessarily bring benefit to human beings.

By coincidence, another Taiwanese artist--albeit one now teaching in the Department of Arts and Technologies of the Image at the University Paris 8 in France--Chen Chu-yin, created a similar though more abstract "underwater" work. Her installation projected jellyfish-like animals onto big mirrors placed around the gallery. Their soft bodies moved and stretched as changes were made to the color of the water. Chen said her work, titled "Gray," represented the transformation of energy as described in the guidebook of the exhibition. It was divided into a trilogy of life, "Enlightenment, Wilderness and Rebirth," for which she used computer programs to transform the cycle of life into an illusive animation.

In "Walking with Water," Australian artist Sarah Jane Pell combined her hobby of scuba diving with her art to explore the physical and mental strengths of the human body in the ocean, Lin said. Using breathing apparatus, Pell performed in her own work, undergoing a spiritual journey as she adapted to challenging extreme environments.

A unifying thread connecting the works of these three artists, therefore, was their use of water to explore unpredictable dangers and stimulating energy as a means of discussing issues of life. "Different perspectives in the work create the booming sound of the exhibition as well as the boom of a prosperous future for new media," Lin concluded.
Write to Sandra Shih at sandrashih@mail.gio.gov.tw


我也不會那麼憧憬夜裡的西門 有人說，城市生活充滿壓力與鬱悶
不對，活在台北我卻感覺到各式各樣的人對生活的用心
即使是鬱悶，也富有色彩的美感
只要你懂得
空虛的城市生活也值得懷念
這城市，安靜而需要註解的地方太多了
昨天聯合報和袁廣鳴的訪問 新媒體藝術節》BOOM! 快速與凝結 【聯合報╱林俊德】 2007.06.02 01:22 am
由台灣藝術大學校長黃光男總策畫、匯聚台灣和澳洲新媒體藝術菁英的「2007國際新媒體藝術節」於台灣藝術大學（5.28-6.9）、台北藝術大學（6.5-7.8）先後展開。活動包括展覽、論壇、研討會、工作坊、動畫秀等，訴求跨國、跨校、跨領域的交互作用，尤其在幾位法國重量級學者的參與下，更添盛況。（編按）
●科技日新又新，上個世紀末，我們已從媒體的「電子時代」走進了「數位時代」，人類感知世界的窗口在電影、電視之外，增加了電腦、網路、iPod等多重選擇，「新媒體」一步一步占據你我美感經驗的通道，勢不可當。
「新媒體藝術」正如滲透日常生活的數位產品，是時代的產物。媒體藝術不再止於傳統攝影與錄像，此次藝術節的主軸「BOOM！快速與凝結新媒體的交互作用——台澳新媒體藝術展」，其中靜態和動態的影像作品，多數皆已數位化了。
跨界混種，難以歸類
「互動裝置」為一醒目類別。例如林珮淳的作品《創造的虛擬》，影像、場景與電腦控制台之設置，透過直覺熟悉的互動界面挑起觀者的控制慾，在操作過程中獲得一種「造物主」的快感，乍看夢想成真，其實一切不過是幻象，所謂的「創造」其實是藝術家設下的「陷阱」。這件作品的展現透過科技來完成，骨子裡卻裝載十足「反科技」的人文內涵。
更有那難以歸類的「其他形式」，例如澳洲藝術家Sarah Jane Pell的作品《涉水而行》（Walking with Water），具有專業潛水員身分的藝術家在作品中成為表演者，她潛入水中裝置，以自身行為表達在水中的精神之旅，探索水中身體之本體感覺反應。這個過程被錄製下來以現場影音裝置呈現，帶給觀者一種藍色迷離的奇異感受。
展覽主題「BOOM」意為轟隆聲響或潮湧澎湃，在經濟學和政治學上更有打開榮景之意。台灣新媒體藝術的發展正處於這樣的關鍵階段。新媒體藝術在歐美已有三十年的歷史，不斷推陳出新，成為視覺文化的前衛尖兵。台灣近十年來也趕上這波浪潮，除了政府大力補助數位內容產業起了帶動效應，積極參與國際交流，在碰撞之中滋養自己，終至開出涵融本地文化特點的秀異之花，更是讓台灣作品在世界舞台發光的不二法門。
新媒體科技，另一種畫筆
究竟新媒體藝術是什麼？新媒體藝術真能稱得上藝術嗎？其不同於繪畫、雕塑等傳統藝術的特點為何？這類藝術新寵兒在當下面臨了何種挑戰？前景與險境為何？它將為這個時代帶來什麼新視域？我們將從中透視出什麼文化內涵？科技與藝術看似微妙的合作關係裡，隱藏著什麼樣主、客關係的拉扯？……種種觀念性與技術性議題，在藝術節的論壇和研討會中上演，從中可見新媒體藝術除了闢出創作新舞台，亦開出一塊各路文化理論進場角力的新領地。
策展人之一、台藝大數位藝術實驗室主持人林珮淳指出，媒體藝術的新、舊分野主要在於媒材上由類比跨入了數位，但科技進步不意味著「科技決定藝術」的時代到來，媒材形式背後的觀念是否創造了新時代的思考，才是決定作品價值的核心。或許對學習純藝術出身的林珮淳而言，新的科技不過是她表達想法的另一種畫筆而已。
創作與策展的集體合作趨勢


L-R: Alister Riddell, Christopher Fulham, **, Tom Giddeon, **, Lucian Leon, Jason Nelson, Sarah Jane Pell | Professional Visit | Tainan National University of the Arts.

新媒體藝術揭示了一個「跨」的時代來臨。首先是跨領域專業的合作，一件數位藝術作品往往涉及程式撰寫者的參與，心靈精算師與電腦精算師因藝術而結伴，人文與科技零距離地親密接觸。檢視此展作品，作者欄出現了好幾個「＋」號，《Flow》的作者「曾鈺涓＋李家祥」為藝術背景和機電科技背景的結合，有如粉圓加奶茶成為珍珠奶茶、冰淇淋加冰咖啡成為漂浮咖啡那般奇異的效果。即使那些以個人名義參展的作品，或多或少都仰賴了一些電算人員或工程人員的支援。
「跨領域」的「集體合作」同樣反映在策展執行上。新媒體藝術的展覽策畫需要更多元專業、更龐大團隊的人力投入。現場許多互動裝置鼓動參與的結果，難免也得承受「可預期」的破壞，作品保固維修的機動待命小組，其重要性完全不亞於現場解說人員。為了完整而順暢地展現新媒體藝術的數位魅力和互動趣味，需要更多人力物力的投入，官方資源的挹注當為活水，企業的金錢贊助與設備支援也愈見重要。策展專業複雜化之後，林珮淳認為，還是得回歸「教育」管道，讓經驗得以傳承。
質疑聲浪：新媒體藝術是藝術嗎？
動畫是新媒體藝術中最具產業潛力者，卻也因此成為藝術圈裡的邊緣人。當中是否埋藏著「愈有大眾緣者愈不藝術」的弔詭？多彩紛呈的各種新媒體藝術，又有多少文化創意能被轉化為商業營利？另一位策展人、澳洲國家大學媒體藝術中心主任Eleanor Gates-Stuart不支持「商業／藝術」的二分法，她更傾向於「去看本質」， 她舉此展中Ch晹 Baker的音樂MV作品〈離開此地〉（Out of This Place）為例，一件作品或許目的是商業的，創作和閱聽過程卻可以是藝術的。
Eleanor反覆提到一個「交界」的問題，究竟當初是誰劃定了文化的界線？她說，也許現在的年輕人不太造訪美術館了，然而這不代表他們離藝術愈來愈遠，「網路也可以是美術館。」或許這正是新媒體藝術的前景所在。
Eleanor的參展作品《病毒》（Virus）是界線在創作形式上泯滅的一個例證：手感與數位可以彼此相容。她針對病毒的各種不同狀態先畫了大量的手繪，再透過電腦一張一張交疊處理，融合數位影像的著迷狀態，創造一種對模糊糾結的死亡的反映。
深化人文素養，避開炫技險境
「任何一件作品都不該移除自身文化的傳承。」Eleanor說。在這樣的理念下，運用新媒體藝術來表現自己的文化成為可能。袁廣鳴《城市失格——西門町》堪為代表，在地的城市地景被巧妙地導入一種文化思考過程。他攝下西門町同一場景不同時間的影像，在電腦上將影像重疊，再透過修相技術將畫面裡的人、車一一去除，使得城市猶如一座徹底清場之後的巨型劇場，如真似幻，卻可能是許多觀者心中最真實的「心象」。
林珮淳認為新媒體藝術之所以被質疑，是因其「新」，這是危機亦是契機。在創造新時代美學的路上，教育界當持續深化人文素養的紮根，新媒體藝術裡的「科技」就像傳統藝術裡的「畫技」一般，並非藝術的本質層面。台藝大通識教育中心主任趙慶河引用達文西的話：「畫出你所想的，非你所看的。」來說明新媒體藝術若能小心避開過於講求炫麗花樣而忽略文化內涵的危險，那麼新媒體藝術現階段所遭受的種種否定都只是必經的過渡而已。

【2007/06/02 聯合報】 @ http://udn.com/



Professional Visits | Talks | Workshops | Creative Development
Shih Chien University
Shih Hsin University
Taipei National University of the Arts
Tainan National University of the Arts
Kun Shan University
National Yunlin University of Science and Technology




Professional Visit, Taipei National University of the Arts, Center for Art & Technology.

Civic Functions | Cultural Visits | Social Events
Celebrating Australia-Taiwan New Media Art Exchanges Reception | Australia Commerce and Industry Office, Taipei 29 May 2007
National Palace Musuem, Taipei
Kareoke | City Life | Night Markets | Mountains | Hot Springs | Travel


Pell's attendance was made possible with the support of Edith Cowan University and The Australian Industry and Commerce Office, Taipei. Strategic support was also provided by the City of Perth, Western Australia, the Australian National University and the National Taiwan University of Arts.