The Moment of Consciousness

Spatial installation, 2021

When a creation is institutionalized, its text, material, and form undergo the inspection of “meaning.” If an exhibition becomes a conscious subject that touches the boundary of existence, does the display of art gets freed from the pursuit of meaning? Based on the questioning towards meaning, and on the assumption that consciousness can overpass meaning, this work builds a space within the physical space—one that exists yet is absent from the exhibition space. The work uses the exhibition space while keeping its distance from it, creating an experience that is both enclosed and extended. As the viewer enters the installation, multiple perspectives are provided through the unnoticeable existence in the space, allowing the viewer to penetrate in-between spaces, including the walls, floor, interlayers, storage, and pipelines. It explores the perceived moment of one’s existence by the presence of being right here and right now. Nevertheless, when the experience transforms into an immediate reflection on a surveillance image, the “locale” becomes a space that is neither real nor fictional but alienated. The Moment of Consciousness consists of the layering process of wrapping and exposure, revealing the ghosting state of space, and foreseeing the possibility beyond “meaning.”

(Solo Exhibition, Powen Gallery, Taipei, Taiwan, 2021)