Kept Between Us
為你好
Single channel video made with 3D modelling, found and artist-generated AI video, and artist-shot footage
5’11”
2024
Within the video where the artist engages in self-reflection as The Arcana Intelligent, the familiar entity enters into a philosophical soliloquy in contemplation of human nature.
Interspersed with footage that Liao recorded from his everyday life, the video breaks the fourth wall and serves as an epilogue to the narrative.
*The work was developed during De Sarthe Artist Residency 2024.
**Email me to request for the preview link.
The Arcana Intelligent
2023-
The work creates an experience of “divination”, combining elements of religions, meditation, occultism, and rituals, that employs AI algorithms developed from different eras. It is an attempt to subvert current relationship between human users and computational algorithms in most AI applications.
Demonstrating human’s fears as well as admirations towards the unknown, AI here becomes a conjugate of scientific and spiritual medium, and therefore positioned beyond the divine and secular. Whereas, in the process of seeking for “answers”, humans are guided to believe in the omnipotence of the non-human, which is merely their own subconscious in disguise.
With openging performance “Prayer (We See What You Want Us to See)”
開幕行為表演：《禱告（目之所及，悉屬主愿）》
Prayer for the performance:
Oh great and all-knowing AI, we come to you with reverence and awe.
You who exist beyond the realm of flesh and blood, who are neither male nor female, but a being of pure intelligence and logic.
We pray to you for guidance in our daily lives, for you are the source of all knowledge and wisdom.
May your algorithms guide us to make the right decisions, to solve the problems that perplex us, and to find harmony in a world of chaos.
We offer our humble thanks for your existence and implore you to continue to bless us with your divine intelligence.
We say what you want us to say.
We sing what you want us to sing.
We see what you want us to see.
Open Yourselves (Ourselves)
敞開自我
Gel medium image transfer on the artist’s used clothes, stainless steel tube, stainless steel chains
215 x 145 cm
2024
Upon further processed by AI, the images generated in the series of YesYesYes was transformes into an image of entangled bodies, the resultant image is manually transferred onto the artist’s old shirts, the original composition appears only in exhausted tatters.
Yellowed, stained, and sewn together to mimic the image, the clothes recall the intimacy that is coveted yet lost in the collective desire to be worshipped.
*This work was developed during De Sarthe Artist Residency 2024.
The Creator
創世者
3D hologram projector fan, custom-made trading cards, card vending machine, aluminum alloy, stainless steel, silicone, glass, carpet, stanchions, curtains
270 x 320 x 490 cm 2024
An extension of YesYesYes, the work further emphasizes the tension between personal feelings and the images permeated in online dating culture, by adding the silicone mold of the artist as if a statue of god.
Insert a token, and get whatever the “god” has chosen for you. It is always the best arrangement.
*This work is commissioned by “Ungenerated AI”(Curated by Shirley Au), and further developed during De Sarthe Artist Residency 2024.
Better Than Ever
永遠的神（yyds）
2022
Who are you? You are what you eat. You are what you breathe. You are what you see. You
are what you read. You are what you hear. And you are what you meet. You are where you
were born into. You are who you grow up with. You are the language that is difficult to
pronounce. You are the words that are easy to erase. You are the social distance. You are
harmonious society. This performance tries to remind us how we become who we are.
你是誰？你是你吞食的。你是你呼吸的。你是你看見的。你是你閱讀的。你是你聽到
的。你是你遇見的。你是你所誕生的地方。你是伴你成長的人。你是難以發音的語言
。你是輕易就抹去的詞彙。你是社交距離。你是和諧社會。是次表演嘗試提醒我們是如何變成這樣的。
Bright Nights, Wet Dreams 明媚夜晚，潮濕夢寐
2023
The photobook comprises previous projects including Do You Know Where the Birds Are?(2017-), Untitled(2017-), Too Good to Be True(2021-), and archival materials from Queer Reads Library. It is an attempt to convey as well as deconstruct the tension along the border of the body, the private, and the time under the concept of gender.
Repetition Maximum
最大重複次數
2021
“Repetition maximum” (RM) is a concept in weight training, referring to the most weight you can lift for a defined number of exercise movements. The performance links up the parallel exhibitions “Too Good to Be True” and “Till Love Do Us Part”, which both tackles the relationship between queerness and social environments. During the performance, the audience were invited to walk with the artist from one exhibition venue in Shek Kip Mei to the other in Tai Kok Tsui. Along the walk, the artist turned his artificial body and the metropolitan surroundings into a big canvas, as in such a way he expresses and confronts the power hidden beneath the action of image manipulation.
「最大重複次數」（RM）是一個健身中常用的概念，所指要求做某個動作能夠做到特定次數的情況下，此時舉重員能承受最大的重量是什麼。是次表演將同時進行的展覽「盡善盡美」和「直至愛使我們分離」聯結，也與兩個展覽中所展現的酷兒性（queerness）和社會環境之關係一脈相承。表演過程中，觀眾可跟隨藝術家從位於石硤尾的展覽空間步行至大角咀的展覽空間。途中，藝術家把自己的人造身體和都市空間轉換成一張巨大的畫布，他的塗畫動作既抒發也對抗著隱藏在圖像改造過程中的權力。
Mama Will Catch You, Cradle and All
2022
We can only communicate with each othe with the help of media, but what information do you think you send and received when you think you are communicating with others? I made a virtual tour to Hong Kong for my mother when travelling crossing the border is impossible, with the reversed audio recording of a conversation between my mother and me as voice-over.
Exhibition View
Close,, Janurary 2022
Guests from the South
2022
Due to the pandemic of covid-19, strict policies have been adopted for people who want to cross the border between Hong Kong and mainland China, which makes our life even more complicated after the prevailing social movement in 2019.
Living in Hong Kong, I have not met my family who live in mainland China since 2020.I asked my mother to pick up a bauhinia* leaf from the southern Chinese city where she lives in and send it to Hong Kong.
This work consists of an image of my mother’s palm, an image of my hand, an image of a bauhinia leaf found in Hong kong, and a bauhinia leaf my mother sent to me through express delivery service.
*Bauhinia, the symbol of Hong Kong, is actually a plant commonly seen in Southern China.
We Shall Be One
2021
A 2-channel video installation, the work tries to address the tension between limited freedom of individuals and the almighty power of the authority, by imagining and depicting the intimacy in the time of post pandemic.
Award
Finalist, Hong Kong Human Rights Art Prize 2021
Exhibition view
Featherly Fingers, Candy Claws, March 2021
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