Discourses

Intimacy and Alienation: The Looking Relationship and Style Forms within Contemporary Digital Images

• LIAO Xin-Tien
• Professor at National Taiwan University of Arts and Graduate School of Art-Culture Policy and Management, Lecturer of Taiwan Studies at School of Culture, History and Language in the ANU College of Asia and the Pacificn

Nowadays, with the widespread use of imaging technology, “digital art,” an art form that has come to define a new era and generation, has overwhelmed the art community with its visual impact and influence. In particular, theories and interpretations of digital art are increasingly “lagging behind” digital art’s execution, which is continuously reinventing itself. (Full article download)

Cyborgs, Body and Pleasure: On Digital Art

• Ming Turner
• Research Fellow, De Montfort University (UK)

The body, as a political discourse or media for fine art practice, has been used by artists for decades. It can be traced back to the 1960s when women artists used their body as an interface for their performance, through which they aimed to subjectivise the body, which is more usually seen simply as an object to be looked at mainly be men. Since then, women’s body art has become one of the important forms of art. Two influential and representative pieces include Japanese artist, Yoko Ono’s (1933– ), Cut Piece (1965) and New York-based Yugoslavian artist, Marina Abramovi?’s (1946– ), Rhythm (1974). In Cut Piece, Ono sat motionless on a theatre stage and invited everyone in the audience to come up to the stage and cut her clothing with a pair of scissors until she was half naked. Abramovi? conducted a highly controversial and physically dangerous performance, Rhythm (1974), where she played a hand-and-knife game using different knives moving rapidly between her fingers on a table. By performing Rhythm, Abamovi? was testing the limits of the body and the pain that human beings could endure, through which her body served as both the subject and the media. (Full article download)

Depicting the Subjectivity of Taiwanese Digital Art History via Creations

• CHIU Chih-Yung
• Associate Professor and Department Chair
• Department of Mass Communication, Providence University, Taiwan

In recent years, academic discussions regarding the tense relationship between the theory of digital arts and its practical application have been rising in the United States and advanced nations throughout Europe. Although the discussion is wrought with many dissenting views, all participants seem to agree on one thing: the importance of establishment of digital art theory. To understand the significance of contemporary digital art’s content and modern meaning, the creation of a new aesthetic study (in this case, digital aesthetics) is required. In fact, as early as half a century ago, digital technology has already laid a very solid foundation. In the last decade of the twentieth century, this technology became a ubiquitous necessity in daily life. Today, digital art has risen from the fringes of the art community and into the mainstream. From museums to contemporary art galleries, curators are collecting and featuring major exhibitions of digital art. (Full article download)

From Fluxus to the Avant-Garde Characteristics of Online Art

• LAI Wen-Shu / LIN Hsin-I
• Assistant Professor, Institute of Applied Arts, National Chiao Tung University, Taiwan
• P.hd Student, Institute of Applied Arts, National Chiao Tung University, Taiwan

As one of the important avant-garde movements in art’s history, Fluxus not only inherits Duchamp and Dada’s spirit of anti-art, anti-aestheticism, and anti-tradition, but also initiates the creation of alternative artistic expressions, which utilize a combination of diverse media for its presentation. With its name based on the Greek word, “fluere (flow),” Fluxus is an international network of artists, composers and designers noted for blending different artistic media and disciplines. Its structure is loose, and membership is open to any artist. The central figure behind this movement is George Maciunas, a decisive leader who also lets the organization evolve on its own. Maciunas once stated: " Fluxus is a ‘collective’ & should not be associated with any particular fluxus individual. In other words, fluxus tends to de-individualize individuals." This statement shows that Fluxus’ character is comprised of many participating entities, which all conduct their own creative works. Each entities’ work represents Fluxus in their own way. Within such variations, the only constant is the Fluxus attitude and philosophy. Fluxus does not have a traditional organizational framework or default members. Yet, it is composed of artists from all over the world who share a similar idea. Furthermore, its members are never constant, as many artists might leave at one point, only to return many years later. Rather than saying that Fluxus is a postmodern movement, it is a non-categorizable, ever-changing, dynamic, and scattered group of international artist communities. (Full article download)

Tools, Medium, Media? The Proposition of Digital Art’s Essence

• TSENG Yu-Chuan
• Assistant Professor, Department of Public Relations and Advertising, Shih Hsin University
• Vice Chairman, Taiwn Women's Art Association

When organizing an exhibition about the history of digital art, one is always confronted with the question, “What is digital art?” Even through much analysis of literature about digital art in Taiwan and discussions with numerous artists and researchers, a consensus could not be reached due to the following reason: Each person has a different understanding of digital technology as a tool, medium, or media. Additionally, each person holds a different opinion about the degrees of digitization in an artwork, if any. This not only affects the resulting manifestation of digital art, but also its chronological record. How is "Taiwan’s Digital Art History" defined when based off Li-Chen Loh Sappho’s massive and complex chronological compilation of Taiwan’s new media art? This is ultimately the greatest challenge for this exhibition. Therefore, this essay will revisit an essential question: what is the proposition of digital art? Through discussions with researchers and curators, as well as relevant government departments and private entities, digital art’s proposition is explored to gain a better, more in-depth understanding of the intrinsic nature of digital art. The purpose of this paper is not to validate any accuracies of digital art’s nomenclature, nor to try to derive an ultimate definition of digital art. Rather, through an analysis of literature, the goal of this paper is to gain an understanding of Taiwan’s proposition on art forms which utilize technology as a medium, and derive a categorized framework for digital art that will form the foundation for this exhibition. (Full article download)