Pey-Chwen Lin: Augmented Reality Evangelist
林珮淳：擴增實境的佈道者
by Luchia Meihua
Lee
In this context, Stephen Fry [[ii] ] emphasized that we live in a flood plain and a great storm is coming; most urgently, in order to ready ourselves for a future bristling with technology, we must redouble our efforts to understand who we humans really are. We need to begin to understand what machines can and cannot do, and what human priorities they can assist. Art and humanity are more important than ever; we need to understand our soul, spirit, sense of beauty, love, inspiration, loyalty, and empathy. As machines can be programmed to do more, we will have more time so we need to know how and why we humans can fulfill our true nature.
Lin’s Eve Clone is readily recognizable; nude, in a crouching posture with partly extended arms. Symbolism abounds in Lin’s Eve Clone works; in her words, “The numbers, symbols, sounds and images in my works describe an important ‘appropriation’ concept.” On one level, they support belief in the Christian bible and prophets. On another level, Lin clothes the demon in ideal, standardized human form. As an example, investigate the video Making of Eve Clone then the AR-enabled documentary prints Making of Eve Clone Documentation, five of which show the development of Eve Clone’s hands and five of which show the development of Eve Clone’s head – all of which featured in the exhibition Urban Tribes. While the prints show a mechanical – almost architectural – elaboration of features that become more detailed in each successive print, the chilling app allows Eve Clone’s eyes to open and blink while head and hands rotate, as Lin’s creature wakes from her digital stupor. In the artist’s 2014 Revelation of Eve Clone video reflecting on global climate change and rising sea level, she gives us an animation of Eve Clone under water. Eve Clone’s head is golden, with a triple 6 adorning the forehead. In the video, its legs gradually turn to lead, matching the dream of Nebuchadnezzar as interpreted by Daniel.
Lin constructs another version of Eve Clone which is superimposed on and even obscures Vitruvian man, DaVinci’s ideal specifications for the human figure. Thus, the artist points to the danger that today’s advanced digital technology is also creating an ideal. For the video, Lin used a virtual camera to show from various angles how Eve Clone has been shaped and to emphasize her digital nature. The wire frame and skeleton, VU texture mapping, and pattern engraving not only serve as documentation but also underline how Eve Clone is a digital product of human desire. In another AR-enabled series, Lin explores the virgin Mary depicted as a classic and elegant renaissance woman head, recalling the series of prints showing construction of Eve Clone. In this digitally augmented reality, we have entered a qualitatively different era of information and new technological connectedness. As these prints suggest, it may be difficult or even impossible to distinguish the real from the fake, the robotic, and fetishistic.
Now turn to the Great Babylon video, which has Eve Clone high in the air above Babylon, at that time the capital of the most potent empire in the world, a great seat of learning and culture and law, famed for the Hanging Gardens of Babylon cited by ancient writers as one of the Seven Wonders of the World. Lin based her video on the the Book of Genesis, chapter 11 which identifies Babylon as the site of the Tower of Babel. Eve Clone presides over the ruin of the mighty city below her, and the subsequent destruction of the world as caused by human beings, and then explodes in the sky above Babylon like a meteor burning up.
Just as the four evangelists transmitted their message through the medium of Greek scripture translated into Latin – utterly new to unlettered barbarians – so too does Lin employ the latest digital techniques to point out that the answer proposed by high technology is deeply flawed, tainted with over-reaching pride, and ignores man’s place in the cosmos.
[i] Louden, Robert. n.d. Kant’s Human Being:
essays on his theory of human nature. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Accessed
May 4, 2019.
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/f0e6/da6197978d213e17dc76dfa63448decff5b6.pdf.
[ii]
Fry, Stephen. 2017. Shannon Luminary Lecture Series - Stephen Fry, actor,
comedian, journalist, author. Oct 3.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24F6C1KfbjM.
_______________________________________________________________________________
Exhibition
Pey-Chwen Lin: Eve Clone Augmented Reality
Opening reception: Thursday October 24, 5-7pm
Exhibition
Dates: October 17 – November 27, 2019
Venue:
QCC Art Gallery/CUNY
Curators:
Luchia Meihua Lee, Faustino Quintanilla
Co-organizers:
QCC Art Gallery/CUNY and Taiwanese American Arts Council
Making of Eve Clone Documentation I- Head I, II, III, IV, V, 2017
Digital print with AR Installation and hand drawing 29.3 x 41.3 inches
Courtesy of the artist
Making of Eve Clone Documentation I- Hand I, II, III, IV, V, 2017
Digital print with AR Installation and hand drawing 29.3 x 41.3 inches
Courtesy of the artist
Scan QR Code for Head and hand interactive
Making of Eve Clone Portrait
IAR, IIAR, IIIAR, IVAR, 2019
Digital print with AR installation
and hand drawing
21 x 28 inches
Courtesy of the artist
Videos:
Video 1 夏娃克隆啟示錄
Revelation of Eve Clone IV, 2014
Motion graphics
3D animation, Electronic Music Composure,
Color with Sound, Single Channel DVD Loop
2:14 minites
Revelation of Eve Clone IVM:
Video 2
Making of Eve Clone I
Digital video and sound projection,
3D animation,
9:10 minutes
Video 3
Great Babylon, 2019
Motion graphics
3D animation, Electronic Music Composure,
Color with Sound, Single Channel DVD Loop
2:58 minites
Great Babylon M:
林珮淳：擴增實境的佈道者
使用抽象的手法去描繪一種看不見的精神及現象與一種觀念是自由心証，把它具像化則是一個不容易的過程。將宗教預言數位化并形成虛擬網路存在，取用預見的危機透過藝術的表現來作爲寓言式呈現，它存在一種“説服”觀者的困難度，雖然是存在現實社會中科學的被鼓勵發展也是事實，生物科技的發展野心也可預言了浩劫存在可能。在藝術史上也猶如超現實的結合或是使用符號學來進行分析是存在的，更是中世紀或是文藝復興的藝術呈現的主流。
(中文版待續）
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