Aichi Triennale 2019

Everyday Maneuver is a video that presents the viewer with an unrealistic scenery. Shot from a drone, it shows a city at daytime, but there isn't a single human being in it. What seems disconnected from everyday life, and as artificial as a landscape created with computer graphics, is in fact a recording that was made during one of the annual "Wanan Air Raid Drills" that have been implemented in Taiwan since 1978. When the exercise takes place at the beginning of spring, for thirty minutes during the day people take shelter in buildings, and car and motorbike traffic is limited. While elderly and foreign citizens sense at these occasions the shadow of war, for young people they are just routine events, so it seems to depend on such aspects as age and position how the Taiwanese people deal with. The images of five locations completely devoid of people - including the busiest street in Taipei - inspire the viewer to think about the threat of war that lurks even in the seemingly quiet and peaceful daily life in the city.
Tomorrowland is another video that celebrates "tension" in a different kind of way. Here the viewer witnesses how an amusement park as a symbol of utopia is suddenly blown up. The seamlessly looped video creates an impression comparable to that of a dream far beyond reality.
Both works were realized using media technology, and consist of images somewhere between reality and fiction. They project the artist's awareness of issues related to globalization, terrorism, war, immigrants, refugees, natural disasters, economic disparity, and other problems the world is facing today. The two works may be understood as metaphors that hint at the contemporary reality of "war walking side by side with the everyday."