Yuanfen New Media Art Space is honored to showcase the work of three artists who take us to the realm between the real and the virtual, between our conscious state and dreams. Yam Lau from Canada, Ma Yongfeng from China and Michael Yuen from Australia come together to present three unique new media experiences. Each artist, in his own way, takes us on a journey where we find ourselves standing upon reality’s threshold, gazing beyond into another world - a virtual one. These virtual worlds have germinated within the minds of each of the artists and are revealed to us through each artist’s unique, creative vision.
Yam Lau’s three pieces in this exhibition (Scapeland, Crossings: in the space of day and night and Room: an extension) are journeys exploring seemingly mundane themes, but in fact, they are computer-generated virtualizations that complicate what we normally perceive as reality. Scapeland is a seascape video projected on a wall under a cloth canopy specially built for the piece. The canopy at once echoes both Scapeland’s gossamer motif and the gallery’s Bauhaus structure. To one side of the canopy is the gallery’s new video mini-theater where one sits on benches or large Pilates balls to watch Yam Lau’s Crossings. Traffic crossings are a common thing that we encounter in our lives every day, however, there is nothing common about Yam Lau’s Crossings as it transforms the ordinary into a kaleidoscopic virtual ballet that moves to its own internal, surreal rhythm. Yam’s third piece in the exhibit, Room: an extension, is a video playing on a 42-inch monitor that unassumingly hangs on its own wall in the gallery. The simple theme of the artist rising in the morning and walking around his apartment is rendered in such a way as to make us question our own perceptions as the scenes metamorphose into a series of revolving, virtual cubes. As we watch, the scenes morph in a way that suspends our established notions of time and movement.
Michael Yuen’s Pulse is a sound and light installation that “lives” in a tunnel under the gallery’s elevated, glass-bottomed lap pool. The pulsating light of a blue LED, accompanied by an electronic hum takes us on a path back to our mother’s womb. The pressure of forty metric tones of water in the pool above envelops us in metaphoric amniotic fluid. The electronic beat echoes that of our mother’s heart we heard as a fetus, calming us, emboldening us, giving us the courage to venture forth into an unknown reality.
Ma Yongfeng’s two pieces in the exhibition share a common name: Transparency is Wrong. Ma, like Yam Lau, recasts the mundane into the magical through his technified vision. Wrong Transparency I is a video projected upon the gallery’s arched ceiling: an ethereal encounter with Chinese checker pieces parading across a black background, moving to some silent beat that isn’t human. Transparency is Wrong 2 is a large (3.5m x 1.5m) photograph of floating images on a black background that appear to be, diamonds? Transistors? Only upon closer inspection do they reveal their true identities as crinkled up plastic sacks.
Yam Lau, Michael Yuen and Ma Yongfeng each help to break down our pre-existing perceptual barriers and preconceptions, allowing us to reach into new worlds. In turn, we gain a greater understanding of ourselves, of how we interact with our reality.
