ACT alumnus Po-Hao Chi’s (SMACT ’21) studio in Taiwan, Zone Sound Creative, currently has an exhibition featuring the work of ACT alumni including: Luíza Bastos-Lages (SMACT ’20), Chucho Ocampo Aguilar (SMACT ’21), and Nancy Valladares (SMACT ’20).
The overwhelming feeling of “climate change” represents a constant wavering – always somewhere between anxiety and helplessness. Or, as Donna Haraway has suggested, we now find ourselves caught in a state of “indecisive agitation.”
In light of the ongoing challenges posed by climate change and the very current global pandemic, Zone Sound Creative formed a partnership with the multidisciplinary laboratory dériveLAB and culture space BEMA from Mexico to form an international space of collaboration. Artists from Taiwan and South America with backgrounds exploring the connections between art and technology were invited to respond to the notion of “Environmental Sensory” by drawing from the perspective of their own individual practices.
After a year of exchanges, the artists have utilized modular components to connect open source environmental sensor networks, develop prototypes of the installation using digital fabrication technology, and hold regular and staged public events in both Taiwan and South America.
In Mexico, dériveLAB launched PIP – Public Infrastructure Prototypes for a City of the Future, building a huge futuristic environmental monitoring structure in the city. The installations in Taiwan have been developed to adapt to local conditions, and are reliant on the physical intervention of the audience as the operator to provide a reflection of detectable disturbances to the surrounding environment, thus blurring the boundary between the audience and the artists.
Selecting the topic of civic science and art as its theme, the program plans to hold a forthcoming series of lectures, as well as publish online features. An important aim is to widen the process of interdisciplinary and cultural discussion between Taiwanese and South American artists and to promote dialogue and understanding between different fields.
This project is possible thanks to the support of Taiwan Ministry of Culture, the Art, Culture, and Technology program at MIT and the Mexican Secretariat of Culture’s FONCA fund. Project made in collaboration with PIP ciudad futuro, derive LAB, Po-Hao Chi (SMACT ’21), and Rae Yuping Hsu (SMACT ’20).
