200000kb Ticky Tacky is the consequence of the award of New Trend 2010 presented by Artist Commune to Chan Hin Sin. This inviting solo exhibition is her first solo on installation art, in which she is going to incorporate the unique exhibition space as a big group of installations as a whole. The idea of artworks presented in 200000kb Ticky Tacky is extended from the self-reflection of artist on the fetish of playing online simulation games. In today’s life, using internet, Facebook and playing online games are common experiences among most of the people. However, some of the users and players have an unusual addiction to the attached simulation games. Its influences sneak to reality, the opposite side of virtual reality.
Technology is now advanced and cheap enough that allows almost everyone to stay connected online. In recent years, Facebook has become a dominant tool for people to connect with friends. It enables them to look for old and new friends, and update their life in every second. Gradually, browsing people’s life on screen starts to displace personal touch. Applications attached to it, especially different kinds of simulation games, grow and creep along it and create a second layer of virtual space within the pseudo-reality of Facebook. In the game, varieties of little games, rules, role-play, choices of face and outlook, and missions assigned to players etc., are just like an almost complete reconstruction of our lives and attract us to project our own selves into it. The attractiveness of the fantasy game world is not less than our reality. Items which allow you to buy in the game, including big items like room spaces in a house, window frames, furnitures, and small items like apparels, foods, (and even) facial expressions and actions of your character, are all allowed to “realized” in the game by exchanging your real money with virtual money. “Materials” can be more easily owned in the game than to purchase it in reality. Thus, we may construct and fulfill our dream life, our “Utopia”, in a more cheaper way. But while the game designer expands the territory of virtual world until a border that is so broad, and it is prosperous and abundant enough to become a “world”, it would be very inducing for people to be absorbed unconsciously into it, and reside in there to expand their desire without knowing the pass away of real world. It blends, and even removes the border between the two different worlds which are opposite in nature. It is exactly like the fable of the Argentine poet Jorge Luis Borges, that is also borrowed by the French theorist Jean Baudrillard when interpreting about hyperreality: A great empire orders its cartographers to create a map of it. They therefore draw the map so detailed that it has the same size and includes everything of the empire. It grows and evolves along with the expansion or lost of the empire’s territory. In the end, the empire declines, and there is only the map left over. Jean Baudrillard points out the fact that where the modern people live in today is just the map, a simulacrum of reality. It even supersedes reality.
Virtual world itself will not cause physical harm to human body. However, it has the mirror reflection of reality and walks along with it. On the other hand, it has a much greater volume to contain desires than reality. Therefore, it subverts our faith on reality. Chan is aware of this shared living experience, and thus transforms it into an installation space by hybridizing reality and virtual reality, which invites audiences to go inside to ignite their memory, experience and sense of crossing real and unreal. It attempts to experiment and explore the contemporary life of people, that our spirit and body are being anesthetized day to day.
Opening Reception: 2011.5.21, 6pm
Curator: Lin On Yeung
Coordinator: Artist Commune Administrative Office
Organizer: Artist Commune
Supported by: Hong Kong Arts Development Council
This is an exhibition of New Trend 2010 Series
Artist Biography
CHAN Hin Sin was born in 1987 in Hong Kong. She has participated a half-year exchange program at College of Fine arts, Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh of United States in 2009. She graduated with B.A. degree, majored in Fine Arts, from The Chinese University of Hong Kong in 2010. She has been awarded CUHK Outstanding Creativity Award on Humanities 2008, Cliftons Art Prize 2008 and Artist Commune New Trend Award 2010. In her art, she offers diverse media including painting, video, installation and photography.
Curator Biography
LIN On Yeung graduated in 2008 from The Chinese University of Hong Kong, New Asia College, majored in Fine Arts. He has been working on art administration, meanwhile he works as one of the editors of the local photography and cultural magazine KLACK until now.
