GROUP EXHIBITION

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“The flood is overwhelming;” Gen (The tribal chiefs of the legendary primitive era.) stole the ‘vigorous soil’ to “block the flood” which initiates flood control. In the “Shan Hai Jing” (Classic of Mountains and Seas), the “vigorous soil” is described as having a special ability to grow and expand continuously, symbolising growth, nurturing, and cyclical beginnings. As digital technologies, like artificial intelligence, evolve in a torrent, the timeline of technology disrupts the original natural time, breaking down the windows that separate us from the external infinite natural. When Paul J. Crutzen first used the term “Anthropocene,” it seemed to herald the end of the separation between nature and historical subjects. The Anthropocene signifies the systemic and material continuity between human posture and living environment. In this context, the image of ‘Umwelt,’ becomes inseparable from human, akin to the regenerative “vigorous soil” returning to its origin——the cycle began 8,000 years ago with the agricultural era, where deforestation initiated the process.

Aristotle’s Metaphysics asserts that ‘The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.’ The whole transcends its individual components, and at the scale of humanity, the interactions between individuals and their environment lead to “emergence.” When emergence occurs, an entity exhibits new characteristics that are not present in any individual component. Emergence symbolises the complexity and variability of systems. ‘Umwelt’ encompasses an environment of systemic consensus and symbiosis, where individuals respond to their surroundings in their unique ways, creating feedback. The interactions among individuals within the system form life experiences and worldviews that are both intimate and shared. In this ecological network, artists act as small nodes, sensitive to the subtle ripples around them.

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The works of Wang Yuyu and Bao Rong weave a landscape of desire characterised by “stickiness and permeation” based on bodily experiences. They adeptly use various materials, such as inflatable plastics, silicone, and metal, marking traces of symbiotic emergence within the ‘Umwelt’. Lin Shan describes ecological narratives through human perception of plants; the repetitive and swaying growth of plants symbolises a continuously changing state of integration. The artists express their ecological experiences through the perceptions of shapes, depths, shadows, and textures perceived via new technologies, developing, cultivating, and articulating perceptions based on bodily environments, overcoming and bridging perceptual differences through visual media.

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New technologies have created a new cycle of ‘vigorous soil’ where technology ceaselessly learns and records nature, achieving not only imitation but even transcendence of nature. Analysis, documentation and appropriation not only help to the visual analysis of nature, but also to the inclusive generation of images. In this regard, artists blend their experiences with images and data to create new forms of experience, merging visuals and discourse into a visually tautological form.

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Artists like Jinhee Kim and Lucas Dupuy excel at capturing unreal moments of everyday life, skillfully employing the textures of screen images to poetically present light and minimalist spatial compositions, thus subverting traditional representations. Wang Ziping and Wang Chaoqun focus on the direct impact of digital information technology on their visual perception. The combination of different types of symbols and external organs extends the understanding of painting’s spatiality into conceptual forms, reflecting the contemporary process of digital integration with the body. As digital systems become embedded, they not only record and archive information but begin to exhibit perceptual functions, amplifying the emotional quality of images through feedback in communication, thereby enhancing the sensations and intensity of information.

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‘Vigorous soil’ carries the vicissitude of the old and new, with the information landscape merging new forms of interaction between technology and nature. Within the ‘visual array’ effect described by Gibson, this integrated approach to modulating visual perception is increasingly embedded in the form and content of art. The works of Xie Lingrou and Jiwon Choi are imbued with themes of nostalgia and texture. The former focuses on the sensatory relationship between image and painting, while the latter incorporates the processed emotions of consumption to the textured quality of her ceramic paintings. Scarlett Budden and Hua Shuchen depict concrete landscapes or bodies, with bodily perception materialising within the realm of technology; the magnified landscapes become expressions of self. The ecological nature of art serves as a call to “read” the environment from the perspective of information acquisition, as well as a call to adapt to this information. Artists contemplate how to express their connection to the world using their own bodies and as organisms, revealing the interrelations between themselves and their surroundings.

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In the ‘torrent’ of technology, perhaps art could serve as a form of ‘vigorous soil,’ a means of expression to “seal off” the contradictions and imbalances that arise from rigid definitions. In specific contemporary contexts, artistic expression provides an approach to bridge the vast chasms in modern ontology. It encourages us to step outside established linguistic frameworks, using body as a medium and intuition as a guide to experience deeper, more essential forms of communication that transcend words.