Impressibility/Column (Taipei)

2021
Looping Video, Flexible LED Panel

The project presented at the Taipei Artist Village considers the disjoint between graphical, linguistic, and embodied experiences of urban space. Tracing the migrations of political geometries embedded in the built form of the city, it is a sculptural video installation responding to the histories of urban and architectural development in Taipei. The video centers a major intersection on the site of the 1884 Taipei City walls built in traditional style by Qing Dynasty China, before being replace in 1895 by a program of Japanese colonial modernization. On the site, a traditionally fashioned imperial gate became the locus of a boulevard and traffic circle reflecting political realignments of outlook in the geometric structures of a rapidly changing city. In relation to local conditions, the work examines the sensations produced in the encounter with environmental histories, translated into a sculptural event. Using digital video panels typically used in architectural-scale public signage warping in onside themselves to form a circular column, the project presents a spiraling collage of different forms of architectural and urban representation to capture the slippages within which and readings of the past or future might become possible.

Credits: Production funding provided by Taipei Artist Village and MIT Science and Technology Initiatives.