YU Cheng-Ta

YU CHENG-TAb. 1983 in Tainan, Taiwan, Currently works and lives in Taipei, Taiwan.

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contact infomation:chengta227@gmail.comwww.yuchengta.comyuchengta.blogspot.com+886-926-763-183

Artist Grants, Department of Cultural Affairs of Taipei City Government, Taipei, TaiwanSelected Taiwanese Artist for International Residency Project, Taipei Artist Village / Unitec New Zealand, TaiwanSelected Taiwanese Artist for International Residency Project, Council for Cultural Affairs /ISCP New York, TaiwanTaipei Arts Awards (First Place), Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taipei, TaiwanS-An Aesthetics Praise-Arts Creation Support in the category of Plastic Arts, S-An cultural Foundation, Taiwan Project Grants, The National Culture and Arts Foundation, Taipei, Taiwan Outstanding Art Work Prize, Fine Arts Department of Taipei National University of the Arts, Taipei, Taiwan Kaohsiung Awards in the category of Mixed Media, Kaohsiung Fine Arts Museum, Kaohsiung, Taiwan S-An Aesthetics Praise-Arts Creation Support in the category of Plastic Arts, S-An cultural Foundation, Taiwan

2010

20092008

20072006

She is My Aunt, National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Taichung, Taiwan Ventriloquists : Introduction, National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Taichung, Taiwan

20112008

Taipei National University of the Arts, M.F.A., Taipei, TaiwanTaipei National University of the Arts, B.F.A., Taipei, Taiwan

20112006

AWARD, PRIZE AND GRANT

COLLECTION

EDUCATION

Artists in Residence Programme, Unitec, Auckland, New ZealandTaiwan Cultural Council of Affairs Artists in Residence Programme, ISCP, New York, U.S.AOPEN SPACE, Summer Art Camp, Kunsthochschule Kassel, GermanyThe New Taiwanese-Digital Witnesses, Curator assistant, Kuandu museum of fine arts, Taipei, TaiwanNijinsky’s, Curator assistant, Kuandu museum of fine arts, Taipei, Taiwan

2011200920072005

PARTICIPATED ART-IN-RESIDENCE AND PROJECTS

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Crystal City: Contemporary Asian Artists, The Dowse Art Museum, Wellington, New ZealandInvisibleness is Visibleness-International Contemporary Art Collection of a Salaryman- Daisuke Mi-yatsu, Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei, Taipei, TaiwanThe Empty City, GlogauAir, Berlin, GermanyPlug in X Add on: Taiwan Contemporary Art Exhibition, Rag Factory, London, UKSoceite Generale Chinese Art Awards, Shanghai Library, Shanghai, ChinaArtistree Taikoo, Hongkong, ChinaTokyo Midtown, Tokyo, JapanParis-Beijing Gallerie, Paris, FranceHaushan 1914, Taipei, TaiwanLIVE AMMO, Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei, Taipei, TaiwanUniverses in Universe: City Guide, Snowwhite Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand

OURS. KARAOKE, Chi-Wen Gallery, Taipei, Taiwanadj. Dance, Chi-Wen Gallery, Taipei, TaiwanUniverses in Universe, Galerie Grand Siècle Gallery, Taipei, Taiwan

Taiwan Calling: Elusive Island, Ludwig Museum, Budapest, HungaryTrap, art issue projects, Beijing, ChinaSoceite Generale Chinese Art Awards, 798 Creative Space, Beijing, ChinaThe Seventh Taipei Biennial (screening), Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taipei, TaiwanThe Practice of Everyday, Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts, Taipei, TaiwanPost-adolescence, Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts, Taipei, TaiwanOver Sees: Babel, Machon Hamayim Gallery, Givatayim, IsraelVision2: The Future that Encomprsses the Past, Tina Keng Gallery, Taipei, TaiwanForeign Affairs: The 53rd Venice Biennale Taiwan Pavilion returns to Taiwan, Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taipei, TaiwanPost-adolescence, National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Taichung, TaiwanGrand Opening Show, Taipei Contemporary Art Center, Taipei, Taiwan `

Open Studio, ISCP, New York, U.S.A2009 Asian Art Forum: Whose Exhibition is This?, Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taipei, TaiwanThe 53rd Venice Biennale Taiwan Pavilion : Foreign Affairs:Artists from Taiwan, Pallazzo delle Prigioni, Venice, ItalyWelcome to the Desert of the Real, TungHai University Art Gallery, Taichung, TaiwanBiennale Cuvée - World Selection of Contemporary Art, OK Center for Contemporary Art, Linz, AustriaCode Share - 5 Continents 10 Biennales 20 Artists, Contemporary Arts Center, Vilnius, LithuaniaSocially Disorganised, Experimental Art Foundation, Adelaide, AustraliaThe View From Elsewhere, Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation, Sydney, AustraliaTaiwan-Israel Young Artists Interchanging Exhibition 2, Kuandu museum of fine arts, Taipei, Taiwan

2009

GROUP EXHIBITION

2010

SOLO EXHIBITION

20112010

2011

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Screening and Presentation

AMEI AMEI Gathering Party, ISCP, New York, U.S.AThe Williamsburg Art Wok, Brooklyn Chinese restaurant, New York, U.S.AMUST MORE - Visual Voice from Five Asian Countries, Point B, New York, U.S.A

2009

The Sixth Taipei Biennial, Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taipei, TaiwanTaipei Arts Awards Exhibition, Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taipei, TaiwanAsia Students and Young Artists Art Festival, Seoul Station Old Bldg, Seoul, KoreaGrooving : New Wave of Taiwan Contemporary Art, Project Fulfill Art Space, Taipei, TaiwanBorderline.Mirrorlike: Taiwan-Israel Young Artists, Kuandu museum of fine arts, Taipei, TaiwanXiao Mei Hurts, Underground Gallery, Taipei, TaiwanNo Error Lost, NanHai Gallery, Taipei, Taiwan

2008

Art Party, Fukuoka Art Museum, Fukuoka, JapanTaipei - Fukuoka Interchanging Art Exhibition, Kuandu museum of fine arts, Taipei, TaiwanOPEN SPACE, Kunsthochschule Kassel, Kassel, Germany0 – 0, National Taipei University of Education Bombproof Gallery, Taipei, Taiwan

2007

Intermedatine, NTUA, Taipei County, TaiwanGUAN C PARK, Underground Gallery, Taipei, Taiwan

2006

Art Taiwan- The Fourth Artist Fair continues, Chinese Culture and Movie Center, Taipei, TaiwanThe New Taiwanese - Digital Witnesses, Kuandu museum of fine arts, Taipei, Taiwan

2005

Lecture at Fresh Paint 3, Tel Aviv Contemporary Art Fair, Tel Aviv, Israel2010

Movie Night Vol. 4: Global House Video Screenings, Kunsthalle Gwangju,Gwangju, KoreaBody Talks? Silence Beyond, Art Fair Tokyo 2011 Related-Program: Special Video Program, SYM-POSIA, Tokyo, JapanWEEKENDHAUS–TAIPEI PROJECT : COLLECTIVE MEMORY, Taipei, Taiwan

2011

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Vitae

The process of imagining the relationships between differ-ent entangled forms in life, for me, involves rethinking the distance between others and myself, and beginning to determine my own position therein. In my works, I attempt to address the imagined relationship between a subject and an other, through the subtle cracks that may exist within culture, language or identity, and the differences that exist within those cracks. This creates the pos-sibility for a new kind of relationship. I do not attempt to express the conflicts and contradictions that lie within differences, but use humour as a means to make connections, or produce accidents. In the series “Ventriloquists”, I address the cracks that exist within the differences between language systems by playing the role of a transparent yet visible interpreter who uses bodily manipulation and the voice to express a new form of politics and a new dialogue of foreign relations.

I take my own video artworks as a reproduction resulted from a game. Before it turns into a completed work, i have already finished a game for amateturs. In my work, I design a game-like structure for those people being recorded. The production process is struc-tured within an open script, in which any mistake and error is al-lowed. The development of the script depends on the differences among cultures and the variation among systems. In this game, I make a self-split subject to indulge itself into the game. The subjectsimutanenously plays multiple roles such as the avtivity orgaziner, the activity host, the participator, as well as an observer. While I bring the recorded video back for post-production, the subject turns itself into an artist who is working on the arrangemnt and thedisposition of the work. I, as the subject, develop myself in the work, wraping the “object”within the well-arranged relationship structure layer by layer.

What I try to emphaize in my artistic practice is the cross-cultural, cross-geographical, and cross-temporal corelation, and how it af-fects me. Through a series of conversations among heterogeneous individuals, I thus demonstrate a critique against a stablized rules.

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Ventriloquists: Introduction, video installation, 2008, Taipei Biennial

Ventriloquists: Liang Mei-Lan and Emily Su , video installation, 2009, Venice Biennale

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Cheng-Ta Yu belongs to a generation too young to have experienced the severe battle of public opinion that raged around the question of “identity” in Taiwan during and after the 1987 lifting of martial law. Nonetheless, he lives in an era framed by a host of problems surround-ing the coexistence of different ethnic groups, and because of this, the special quality of his art lies in his artistic imagination being able, in a state removed from historical developments, to engage in a highly limpid and profound dialogue with the realities of society regarding history. In his works The Ventriloquist (2007), She is My Aunt (2008) and Ventriloquists: Introduction (2008), a focal point clearly emerged, which commentators have characterised as “self-fracturing political intimation”. Its form is a kind of mise-en-l’abîme: creating fissures that generate disparate meanings. For example, in The Ventriloquist and Ventriloquists: Introduction, Yu hides behind a featured “speaker” who directly faces the camera, and it is in fact Yu that then provides “voice” and “text”. A kind of inverted relationship appears between the power relationships of language and the power relationships of the body. Similarly, in She is My Aunt, audio and video that have devel-oped dissonance due to a lack of historical connection are stitched back together, yet they also correspondingly highlight an internal inability to reunite. The political allusions in Yu’s works become a non-deliberate “surfacing” of political consciousness, or political nature. What uninten-tionally appears are the traces of a bio-politique that exists between incidents and phenomena. In other words, “evasion – implication” must exist within the various kinds of “self-fracturing” forms conjured in the work. For example, using familial relations to reference the extreme display of hysteria, or perhaps using the bodies and voices of outsid-ers to depict one’s own “fiction”, constantly creating a kind of fold, in which politicality appears in the contrast between the two sides of the fold that is formed, and also in the gap carved-out by evasive circum-navigation. Indubitably, this gap is the extra space that appears in the activation of the imagination. It causes the artist’s political concern to become vague – through this circumnavigation the artist’s “cold

The Topological Foreign Affairs of VoiceThe “Phono – Art” of Cheng-Ta Yu

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Huang Chien-Hung

feelings” toward politics are expressed, yet Yu does not consequently erect a barrier blocking out “politicality”. On the contrary, his cre-ations allow these gaps to form virtual connections, by bringing to-gether starting points for notions that are entirely unsubstantiated and imaginary. This new form of political art – which does not de-mand a homogeneity between political ideology and artistic image – directly addresses a form of “foreign affairs” extraneous to foreign affairs.

In addition to creating a giant portrait of international relations, the notion of foreign affairs, in individual imaginative constructions, is an issue that involves numbers (the collective re-creation of coun-tries) and extension (the transcendence of national boundaries). But such discrepancy has always made use of a “projective” (geometri-cal) method to complete the uniformity between the individual and the country in foreign affairs. Yu’s latest work, Ventriloquists : Liang Mei-Lan and Emily Su is an expansion of his 2008 undertaking, Ven-triloquists: Introduction, which embarked on an exploration of a dif-ferent kind of “numerical” problem. In other words, in Ventriloquists: Introduction, an unnamed self and an other, whose common national-ity is unverifiable, serve as the units of extension that shift between friendly cooperative relations and the slips of vocalisation. Through numbers (vocalising individuals) the contours of a different, com-pound, fissured form of the self are sketched out. In other words, the artist does not treat the geometrical projective relationships between number and number, but rather allows the connections between

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individual and individual to be rendered as internal differentiations, ex-pressing a single numerality within the framework of foreign relations, or a kind of micro-foreign affairs. This “language” achieved through an “exchange of voice” or even the topological foreign affairs undertaken through behaviour and the “singing voice”, form a powerful contrast with the foreign affairs achieved through text and contract within the system of designated appointment (or, one might say, macro-foreign affairs), or even possibly an oppositional relationship formed as art confronts politics.

From the level of dialogue in Ventriloquists: Introduction, we can more clearly access the possibilities afforded in the works of Yu. The speech of the “human shadow” elicits not merely the re-representation of forms of “translation” and “heteronomy”, but even more fully, the ten-sion produced through interaction, and a subjective posture of resis-tance when placed in a certain state of restriction – replication, dia-logue, appropriation and severance – and moreover, accompanied with the reproduction of the body, allowing the reproduction of the body to connect to issues related to life and politics, Yu’s “human shadow” serves not simply as “scriptwriter” or “puppet master”, but also as a mask-like schizophrenic, whose “split” eschews projectivist foreign re-lations, attempting to permeate the “body” with sounds that are dis-torted and off-key. Yet in his new work of 2009, Ventriloquists: Liang Mei-Lan and Emily Su, Yu not only expands on the theme of proximal foreign affairs that he explored in Ventriloquists: Introduction, he also brings together the proximal action achieved through fiction that he employed in She is My Aunt. At Taipei’s Won Won Building, where Filipi-no labourers often congregate, Yu found several willing interviewees, or “collaborators”. In addition to doing a survey of their labour conditions and the experience of being an immigrant, the artist also experimented with a new “split” form. He no longer hides behind an “enunciator”, who is asked to narrate the “fiction” that the artist has constructed based on the speaker’s status and state, but instead Yu hides behind the camera and asks questions while standing in front of the intervie-wee. He also no longer invents fictional language on behalf of the

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interviewee, but correspondingly collects real descriptions from the speakers. Slips in language no longer occur in “inferences” of vocali-sation beyond the sphere of denotative meaning, but rather emanate from “confrontation”, from convoluted vocalisations and off-key sounds that occur in order to express meaning. Furthermore, the artist ar-ranges videos of singing, forming an extremely different scenario of “liberation”. The introduction of song incites a different bodily expres-sion in the labourer, a body set within reality yet “escaping” the condi-tions of labour. Using a different kind of language, a form of behaviour liberating oneself from the realities of labour and immigration, the hard work of the labourer’s body is no longer framed within a prede-termined “tragic” or “marginalised” appearance or form; instead, the interviewee is relocated to an extemporaneous “dithyrambic” moment.

These “type – documentations” are what allow the work to transcend the status of a documentary, not the lens’ stylistic language or the theoretical delineation produced by the images. Because of the behav-ioural facets engendered by voice and language in the interviewee’s “off-key” vocalisations and narrations in the “transpositions” between different languages, and the performances they “can’t help” but give in response to the artist’s interrogative language, these issues of vocali-sation incite a different kind of expressiveness. This expressiveness leads us to move beyond the limited number of topical images that customarily appear, and touch upon an alternative form of immediately present “labour”, a kind of “purely personal” labour: a moment when foreign workers at their place of work do not lack “self-expression”. And in a spontaneous moment, the artist takes part in the acting-out of a different kind of world: a foreign affairs of “broken language” that veers clear of elitist diplomatic rhetoric.

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Works List

Ventriloquists: Introduction, 2008

Ventriloquists: Liang Mei-Lan and Emily Su, 2009

Universes in Universe I: World Map, 2009

She is My Aunt, 2008

Works 2003-2007

25CM, 2007

Goodgirl Search, 2007

Pixel Brattice, 2007

The Forest Without Location, 2007

Talk to YOu, 2006

Channel 07, 2006

Double Sun, 2005

Color Wall, 2004

Moving Lines, 2003

Universes in Universe II: External Observer, 2010

Universes in Universe III: National Anthems On-The-Go, 2010

Universes in Universe IV: Flags, 2010

Ode to the Republic of China, 2009-2010

adj. Dance, 2010

Exploding Taiwan, 2011

A Practice of City Guide: Auckland , 2011

Redaing the City: Wellington , 2011

Ours.Karaoke , 2011

Works 2008-2011

Ours. Karaoke8-channel video installation color/sound 2011

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There are both the desires of “performing” and “seeing a performance” hidden deep inside us. The webcam and the system turns on the switch, allowing the Body to enter a visualized situation. Simultane-ously, part of the Body is doing its best to perform, while the other part of it is gazing into the recorded self through the camera. In the project “OURS . KARAOKE,” the artist Yu Cheng-Ta has invited his friends to join the performance: he has walked in his friends’ places with a lap-top, recording their Karaoke performance. The YouTube-like collected videos of those unrehearsed clips creates a show of desire which is beyond the songs being recorded

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Reading the City: Wellingtonvideo installation 09’59” HDV color/sound 2011

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A Practice of City Guide: AucklandSingle-Channel video installation 07’38” HDV color/sound 2011

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As a tourist country, New Zealand has put much effort in the tourism industry, offering detailed tourist information and tours to promote its wonderful landscape. During the art village residence, Yu Cheng-Ta has transformed the tourist-like experience into his project “A Practice of City Guide: Auckland.” In the work, Yu Cheng-Ta has made himself as a tourist guide. Just like those television hosts of the travel/adven-ture programs, Yu also adopts a foreigner’s perspective to re-introduce the scenery of the country. The only difference is that he chooses a foreigner’s language, through which he provides a discussion about the interplay of these cultures and the re-position of the characters. With such a rehearsal-like shooting style, Yu also re-constructs the relation-ship among the locations, the scenes, and the production team.

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Installation View in Taipei Artist Village, 2011, Taipei, Taiwan

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Exploding Taiwan3-channel video installation HDV color/sound 2011

Yu Cheng-ta uses images as his primary form of creation, with his previous works employing different media as mean to explore the phenomenon of message distortion. In his 2008 Taipei Biennial work Ventriloquists, the artist invited foreigners to repeat Chinese phrases spoken by people hiding behind them. This strange combination of cir-cumstances brought many unpredicted mishaps, symbolizing the issues of cultural communication and translation under this era of globaliza-tion, transmission and interaction.

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Present in this exhibition, Yu Cheng-ta creates through the video work Exploding Taiwan a “miniaturized media.” In every tent within exhibition room 201 a video is secretly played, each one with an anonymous interviewee describing in detail the first hand information they have obtained. There are discrepancies in the story of each person, explained perhaps by the confidentiality of the information itself. However, they all point to a common fictitious scenario: Taiwan’s head of state is getting pre-pared to blow up the entire island, and plans to invite world renowned demolition art-ist for assistance. The event would be broadcasted live globally, in order for the world to see this historical moment of madness. In the two years during which the project had been planting explosives across the nation, those who knew had sought asylum in other nations. On the day the island sinks and disappears, the Taiwanese people would be scattered across the nations of the world. The work imitates the “repeat what others are saying” game of the media, allowing the public to experience the possibility of Taiwan as an object of fantasy.

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Installation View in Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei, 2011, Taipei, Taiwan

adj. Dance3-channel video installation 05’11” / 12’08” / 12’38” HDV color/sound 2010

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With our lifestyle gradually turning into a stereotype, such expression be-haviors in the video always bring us a fresh feeling when the vocabularies / movements that we use habitually are interposed with new glossary / ges-tures. The ardent dance performance reminds us of a satisfaction emotion when we were first being involved to the world in our childhood. Meanwhile, it also delivers a great sense of security caused by mutual understanding be-tween self and others due to the shared common experience.

transforms the abstract adjective vocabularies into a series of physical codes / dance movements, which allows audiences to interpret and imitate on their own. Through the regular rhythm and the alternate subtitle explanation in the video, we came to find ourselves sharing with the performers a common emo-tion toward a certain abstract sentiment. That is the hidden reaction when we saw performers attach their personal experience into the dances.

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Yu Cheng-Ta tries to interpret linguistic literary vocabularies through the for-mat of visual movements, which forms a very quaint and foolish representa-tion of such series of “adjective-adjectival movements.” While watching per-formers use different movements to interpret each adjective, are we, through the dance, really understand how language codes are used for description? Or the dance contrarily leads us to question and guess the metaphor that the dance delivers.

is presented in the format similar to the dance teaching video, which seem-ingly to be one of those mass consumption product or self-learning programs on TV channel. The content thus becomes a language supplementary educa-tion product as well as a medium for consumers to learn socialization. How-ever, within the game rules set by Yu Cheng-Ta such as the 17 adjectives / 2-measure tempo / 1.5 square meter area, we can somehow temporarily get rid of the communication anxiety or stress from the inadequacy in languages under the high social competition. Rather, we, for the short moment, can still re-embrace the pleasure of interaction to feely express ourselves.

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Ode to the Republic of China Single-Channel video installation 03’10” HDV color/sound 2009-2010

Ode of the Republic of China is remembered as a political song aboutTaiwan in Taiwanese people’s collective memory. However, when onescrutinizes the lyrics, he or she would find a number of Chinesehistorical signifiers. The lyrics demonstrate the past national gloryof cultural China, while the term “Republic of China” is onlymentioned in the climax of the song. This absurd construction of thelyrics push Yu to reconsider the historical meaning of Ode of theRepublic of China. In the video, he taught each non-Taiwanese afraction of the song and put the fractions together, as commentary tosuch absurdity and incongruity as well as Taiwan’s nebulous identity.

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Universes in Universe IV : FlagsPosters 42x55 cm x 3 2010

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Universes in Universe III : National Anthems On-The-Go

IPOD Touch 103 National Anthems 2010

No matter whether it is a national anthem or a national flag, it is only mean-ingful to the people of that specific country--more often than not, we hardly can sing along when hearing other country’s national anthems, nor can we recognize the flags when seeing any. These two pieces here plays on this common confusion--the artist turns symbolic, nationalist flags and songs into some easy, informal, random objects. The iPod plays national anthems of various countries on shuffle to random passers-by on the street, while the flags are rearranged simply according to the colors and are made into poster to be taken away as-one-pleases. Nothing is being criticised? The relocation of objects/significance is inspecting a new value.

Universes in Universe III : National Anthems

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Universes in Universe II : External Observer

40 Serveys 21x39 cm 2010

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Currently I am working on this survey project—taking myself as a starting point, I seek networking to begin a platform by sending emails and running a website. If you live/work abroad, you’re invited to be my corresponding External Observer--just to answer a few questions based on your own experiences.

Project “External Observer” is designed to examine how one looks at possible relation-ships between individuals. “Being external” could be viewed as being physically exter-nal, i.e., abroad. Or, it could be a status of being mentally external--an imaginary distance between the person and the nation he belongs to. Observers participate in the project by, based on their overseas experiences, providing their feelings toward their home countries as well as by picturing an ideal country in their mind.

Questions:

1. Name of the Observer2. Background information (eg. location? profession? interested in?)3. Based on your daily experiences, please describe how you see Taiwan (or R.O.C.) from an external (abroad) status.4. Based on your daily experiences, please name 5 different nations as prototypes of your ideal country. You may want to describe some specific aspects or reasons of your choices.

Universes in Universe II: External Observer

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Universes in Universe II: External Observer

Universes in Universe I : World Map

Single-Channel video installation HDV 09’49” color/sound 2009

Universes in Universe I: World Map is a video work, in which two girls from Asia reimagine and reconstruct a whole new world map. They communicate with each other in English, the only language they share, to decide where to locate different nations. In the process, the participants’ individual experience mesh to-gether and result in constant shifting of the pieces. Their judgement, in some ways, reso-nate with their embedded imagination of the “Others”. One usually preconceives the world and reflects on oneself through his/ her own experience. Though maybe biased, it is also an interesting contrast with the real world.

Universes in Universe I : World Map

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Universes in Universe I : World Map

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Ventriloquists: Liang Mei-Lan and Emily Su

video installation HDV color/sound 2009

Filmed at the Won Won Building in Taipei Ventriloquists: Liang Mei-Lan and Emily Su is a film of two women from the Philippines who married into Taiwanese families. Having lived in this foreign land for over a decade both women have come to use the local lan-guage as an essential tool in everyday life, but because of their different backgrounds they use the language in different ways. When interacting with Liang Mei-Lan, I at-tempted to converse with her in three languages (Mandarin, Taiwanese and English). When communicating with Emily, who has no Taiwanese citizenship, I used Mandarin and English. All three of us were using forms of voice that were not particularly “official or standardised”. It was a conversation within the cracks of language and unable to al-ways convey what we meant situations of miscommunication and dissonance occasion-ally arose. Eventually I asked them to sing a Chinese song, in an attempt to liberate them from the intangible box that inherently exists in the give-and-take of language, and to set free the poignant images of the disparity between foreign cultures.

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Ventriloquists: Liang Mei-LanHDV

sound/color09:122009

Cora Billan

Her Chinese name is “Liang Mei-Lan”. She is 36 years old, coming from Carbiz City, the Philippines. She came to Taiwan in 1997 to marry a local Taiwanese. With the ability to communicate in both English and Taiwanese quite well, she also speaks Chinese to some degree. Now she lives in San-Hsia and runs a salon in Wan-Wan building, on Chung-Shan North Road, Taipei city.

Ventriloquists: Liang Mei-Lan and Emily Su

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Ventriloquists: Emily SuHDV

sound/color09:122009

Emily Rodriguez Su

She will become 40 this year, from Iloilo City, the Philippines. In 1998, she married a Taiwanese guy but still remain as a Filipino citizen. Speaking of language, she is fluent in both Chinese and English, but her Taiwanese remains poor.She resides in Chun-ho district and owns a grocery store recently in Wan-Wan building.

Ventriloquists: Liang Mei-Lan and Emily Su

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The 53rd Venice Biennale Taiwan Pavilion : Foreign Affairs:Artists from TaiwanPallazzo delle Prigioni, Venice, Italy

E:you good good afternoon -I am Amy -I that English name is Emily Su -Ah..I married to a Taiwanese -He name is Shu Pong-Fu -We live in Chung-Hu -and -I have this shop for almost ten years

C:That say you came Taiwan a lot long?

E:I came Taiwan not much difference 15 years

C:15 years already -That you start time why will come here?

E:I came Taiwan 1995 year -original I came that is care a patient -Because in Philippines, be one Philippine nurse -but I came Taiwan, that one grandma already die. -but my boss still continued to hire me -but one condition is want help them in -market do business

C:do business

E:they selling garlic, ginger, with that vegetable. -in wan-tai market

C:wan tai market -wan tai market. -that to say, so you came Taiwan you are at there meet your husband? -is say what kind condition?

E:I in Taiwan met my husband -Because my husband still can talk English -talk…English….pretty good, -that he have, still have very many Filipino friends. -And then give us introduce

The languages spoken in the film are Mandarin, Taiwanese and English. The subtitles are in English, color-coded green (for Mandarin), yellow (for Taiwanese) and white (for English). And the translating Grammar is according to the language own structure.

Subtitle in the video:

C:oh…so you are Taiwan in Taiwan introduce meet? -So thereafter, you then in Taiwan married.

E:no. - until my that -two years until. -I original want be sent back. -And then after my husband with me together back go. -With my mother talk want with me marry

C:Marry you?

E:Ya, come to follow me

C:Then after is in Philippines marry? Or is in Taiwan?

E:Correct, we are in Philippines marry. -Then after everything already passed by the interview and the embassy -Then after… -Have not much difference…not much difference -three months then he can bring me back

C:back come Taiwan?

E:correct. Come Taiwan

C:so you now have here’s ID?

E:No. I no apply

C:You no apply?

E:I no apply. -Because I often go out country.

C:So philippine’s passport relative good use?

E:Also is in Philippines have doing business. -Than after I not much difference -one month then back one time

E/ Emily Su C/ Cheng-Ta

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C:Philippines?

E:Correct. -Um.. I feel I apply in our there -Relatively have some trouble. -Because everytime you go -Still want applying visa -then after still want again pay 1200 -then after in our there -deals very inconveniently

C:so you opposite are you have is Philippine passport?

E:correct, philippine’s passport -then after in Taiwan I then use residence permit

C:that is spouse’s?

E:correct.-Because I feel I -no think want go any where up work.-I that is go do business.-So use that residence permit should pretty ok-Relatively no problem.

C:So that you have how many like this grocery store.

E:I in Wan Wan building here -I have six stores-But three I want rent to others.-Then after three I myself use-Then after be secondary landlady.C:Ha…so make very much money?

E:No make money.

C:That say, so, that say, you yourself this shop already open ten years?

E:This one have open -3, 4 years

C:3, 4 years already.

E:Correct. This one’s

C:That say, you have kids?

E:I…no kids -We no birth -But my husband he has first wife -She has three kids -Then after, two married -One have not, with us live together -I live with my parents-in law together -Then -The first and -The first child and second child have grandchildren -Not much difference…three grandchildren

C:So you then are “grand-ma”

E:Correct, be grandma already.

C:That to say, you in Taiwan, you live that long -You say, generally 15 years -That to say, normally in life relatively often use language is what?

E:Talk..a lot, that is Mandarin and Chinese -Ah, Mandarin and English

C:Mandarin and English. -That can or not can talk Taiwanese?

E:Taiwanese I listen understandably. -But, not very good talk.

C:Not very good talk. -Talk, talk no good.-Then after with parents-in-law(s)

E:Is talk Taiwanese -They have some Taiwanese -But they speaking Mandarin

C:Plus (similar to “speak”) Mandarin?

E:Talk Mandarin.

C:Plus Mandarin. -So that you at here have very many Taiwanese friends.

E:Many Filipino friends. -Relatively more? -Correct. -Filipino friends also a lot, also have Taiwanese friends -Also have Taiwanese friends?

C:So that, but you today want sing is Taiwanese song

E:Correct, sing that ”I no drunk, I no drunk”

C:”I no drunk, I no drunk”-Is whose song? You know?

E:Ah..I not know

C:Jiang Huei’s

E:Correct.

C:You know this song it is singing what?

E:That is one lady, she is very frustrated in life -Then after she turned into drinking -Then after she said -Nobody understand her -But still good, much better the wine still can accompany her. -And understands what she feels.

C:So is one sad song.

E:Yes, it’s a very sad song.

C:So that, wait one second we then listen you sing this song

E:Okay -Good

Ventriloquists: Liang Mei-Lan and Emily Su

Works

Ventriloquists: Introduction

video installation HDV color/sound 2008

Ventriloquists-Introduction is a series of work shot in the streets of Taipei. I hid behind the foreigners visiting in Taipei and directed them to look at the camera and repeat what I had said. What I had said… It was actually an imitation of tones, and these tones were put together as a forged self-introduction in Chinese. Because my foreigners are not familiar with Chinese, they were trying to imitate, just like an instrument. The instruments play out a language that is not really a language, and thus creates laughing points. I (the man in black behind them) am like the drifting power, which comes in and out of their body, resulting in the state of virtual identity and drifting subjectivity.

Works

Richard Cilli (21, Italy) exchange student university campus 3:11

Natalie Allen (23, Australia) tennis player tennis court 1:50

Kumiko Takahashi (33, Japan) visitor MRT station 2:00

Tanner Brecheen (28, U.S.A) English teacher on the sidewalk 2:07

Works

Phindi Peter (16, South Africa) visitor on the street 1:56

Kel Kelleher (63, Canada) visitor in the lane 1:32

Kin Jin-Hee (33, Korea) manager in front of a convenience store 2:23

Loretta Necir (38, Philippine) maid in the park 1:47

Works

The project begins with a situation now globally experienced by people

who travel to a country with little, or no linguistic competence of the local

language. As an outsider, it can feel like this foreign language is as hefty a

barrier as a brick wall. In addition the projections of another’s images and

identities are apparently also filled with stereotypes, nonsense and assump-

tions. Yu Cheng-Ta took this experience one step further by speaking on

behalf of different foreigners, but as a local in the first-person’s tone much

like a ventriloquist. In the series of nine videos that make up Ventriloquists

– Introduction, he performs time and again as a ventriloquist, hiding behind

foreigners in Taipei and having them repeat his words in Mandarin. His ‘pup-

pets’ represent a wide range of outsiders encountered in various scenarios

in Taipei. They include an American dance professor sitting in a restaurant,

a young American male English teacher on a scooter, an Italian exchange

student in the university campus, a Philippine maid with her friends spend-

ing a Sunday in the park, a Korean manager in front of a convenience store,

etc. As the artist introduces each foreigner’s name, profession, purposes

and interests in Taiwan in Mandarin, the foreigner repeats his statement

word for word without understanding what is being said. Given the difficul-

ties of mimicking Mandarin for these people, mistakes are simply unavoid-

able and can be outrageously hilarious. So “65 years-old” is easily mistaken

as “a young lion which needs some sleep.” And, “professor” as “suburban

guarded area,” etc. Yu takes advantage of the discrepancy of sound dub-

bing and bi-lingual subtitling (Chinese and English) in which his dubbed

script makes complete sense to Mandarin speakers and the foreigner’s

ill-pronounced words are open to absurd interpretations which are shown

as subtitles. For those who do not understand Mandarin, as well as for

those who do, these ‘self-introductions’ simply become an array of semantic

anomalies and incomprehensible self-presentations that perhaps await more

charitable social interactions – if our globalised world is to bring us closer to

each other and make peace possible. The humour of being lost in transla-

tion has become a common experience in our time, whether we travel or

stay at home. (Manray Hsu)

Code Share - 5 Continents 10 Biennales 20 ArtistsContemporary Arts Center, Vilnius, Lithuania

2008 Taipei BiennialTaipei Fine Arts Museum, Taipei, Taiwan

Code Share - 5 Continents 10 Biennales 20 ArtistsContemporary Arts Center, Vilnius, Lithuania

Works

The 53rd Venice Biennale Taiwan Pavilion : Foreign Affairs:Artists from TaiwanPallazzo delle Prigioni, Venice, Italy

Biennale Cuvée - World Selection of Contemporary Art OK Center for Contemporary Art, Linz, Austria

Works

She is My Aunt

Single-Channel Video Installation 07’07” color/sound 2008

I have entered She is my aunt with an invisible body. The main protagonist (the Aunt) has thus comes alive from my narration and my staccato words; I have thus become the medium of the medium (the video). The camera enwraps the event like tentacles entwining on its prey, parasitizing with the news media. The camera cap-tures all people inside the frame and turns them into characters. These characters, post-produced sound effects, and the Aunt (a conscious naming of the main protago-nist) have morphed this video clip into a new event, turning away from the so-calledreality. This process also displays how mediated information will alienate us from the real object and bond us with the virtual media images—the media is the truth maker, and the virtual image is truer than the true self.

Works

She is my aunt.She likes lilies.She only uses Bailan detergent. My mom told me that she is emotional. It seems that those who graduated from the First Girls High School are outspo-ken when it is necessary. Her daughter, Huang Ting, 16 years younger than me, followed her to the other side of the barricade.She is studying in Wan-Hua elementary school,Her grades are just okWell, I have only seen her few times

Borderline . Mirrolike - Taiwan.Israel young artists interchanging exhibitionHuashan Culture Park, Taipei, Taiwan

Works

25 CM

Installation C-print 38x29cmx9 Dimension variable 2007

WORKS 2003-2007

WORKS 2003-2007

Works

Works

Goodgirl Search

video installation 08’30” DVD-NTSC Color/Sound 2007

WORKS 2003-2007

Works

Pixel Brattice

installation Dimension variable 2007

WORKS 2003-2007

The Forest Without Location

installation Dimension variable 2007

Works

WORKS 2003-2007

WORKS 2003-2007

Works

Talk to You

Single Channel Video 6’53” 2006

Works

WORKS 2003-2007

WORKS 2003-2007

Channel O7

Single Channel Video 6’34” 2006

Works

Double Sunvideo installation 2005

Works

WORKS 2003-2007

WORKS 2003-2007

Color Wall

video installation 1’30” 2004

Works

Moving Linesvideo installation 2003

Works

© Cheng-Ta YU. All Rights Reserved.

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