The wave of technologicalizing visual experience rose in the nineteenth century not only broadened people’s visual horizon, but also turned their visual experience into commodity. Such a new visual culture reshaped people’s memory and experience, while the value-increase of social images changed people’s daily life.
The German Philosopher Martin Heidegger points out in his essay “The Age of the World Picture” that essentially the world picture is not merely a picture referring to the world, but a picture grasped and visualized by the world through technology. Later, Guy Debord, based on his thesis of “the society of the spectacle,” claims that “…the real world becomes real images, mere images are transformed into real beings.” In other words, spectacles transformed people’s material life into a static world. As all things in Nature are completely replaced by technology and self-referring symbols, we find that language is no longer connected with specific meanings in a world where the difference between subject and object is eliminated. The real world of all kinds of intentions and purposes is conquered by the assimilation of an independent and objective world into artificial codes and simulation models. As Debord argues, the social life per se becomes the accumulation of spectacles. Everything previously existed by itself is re-presented now. The early capitalist society transformed human experience from “existence” into “possession,” while the advanced capitalist society further transformed “possession” into “exhibition.” We provide the audience with various ways of understanding the relationship among space, image, and subject by treating “Mapping” as the interdisciplinary bridge that connects digital technology with visual art. The audience will witness the projection of fantastic “spatialization of montage” in a fantastic visual jungle.
With this regard, this exhibition adopts “Wonder of Fantasy” as the curatorial theme. With the seventeen foreign works and three Taiwanese works in this exhibition, we expect to demonstrate various ways of image presentation facilitated by advanced projection technology, to demonstrate the visualized montage, and thereby provide images with a spatial dimension of existence. By highlighting the spatial dimension of images, we should no longer regard image appreciation as merely an activity exists between images and audience. Rather, we should also take the space of exhibition venue (specific architectural space, museums, etc.) into consideration when we admire images.
*image (left)
© National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts