Heidi Lau: Touch, Memory, and Clay

HSU CHIA-WEI: (Mandarin) When I focus on a topic in my creation. I want to expand the time and space around it, allowing the dimensions of time and space to unfold. This way we can make interpretations free from restraint and foster a wider range of perspectives in our discussion on the topic.

Since around 2018, I have spent four years collaborating with archaeologists. To me, archaeological technology is a technology of imagination. Modern people make use of existing materials and technologies to imagine a distant time and space that we have never experienced. While it is a scientific approach, it is also poetic. What archaeologists do is to contextualise what they have discovered, finding out the relationship between finds and organising them. Once organised, these objects are put in storage, allowing researchers from various fields to explore these archaeological collections according to their interests.

This group of scientists has just set up a centre for underwater archaeology and is training underwater archaeologists. The technologies used underwater are related to acoustics; aquatic animals emit sounds at frequencies out of the human hearing range. These acoustic technologies are used to study what goes on underwater. That is why I find the aspect of sound even more important in underwater surveys.

One of the keywords that comes to mind with this piece of work is ‘archaeoacoustics’ which is the exploration of how acoustic principles can be applied in archaeological investigations. In Spanish Formosa, the church was built with the intention that residents would live within earshot of the church bells. The colonial territories were defined by sound, rather by rivers or terrain. Thus, considering these archaeological materials from an acoustic perspective can lead to many discoveries that were invisible to the naked eye. That is even more crucial in underwater archaeology, where sonar is the key technology employed. Various sonar techniques are used for detection, converting sound waves into spatial information, or to detect the reflectivity of different materials. In this work, I have incorporated many concepts related to sound.

During the creative process, you may realise that so many things are fundamentally different from how you first imagined them. How do I come up with ways of letting these materials ‘speak’ without a protagonist? I study these materials, the collisions between them, the knocking and pounding, or certain aspects of the acoustic technology to create a work offering an opportunity to be in touch with this time and space. You don’t just look at; you listen for it.

Taiwan has served as a historical gateway, situated along key maritime routes, especially trade routes between north-east and Southeast Asia. Also, the Taiwan Strait is rather treacherous. It is lined with reefs, the currents are strong and the weather is unpredictable, so it has sunk many vessels over the years. I began thinking about how to use the shipwrecks there as my subjects, and transform them into artworks.

Virtual reality (VR) resembles a theatre in some ways, it creates a space or a site at a certain location. That is why I sometimes design my works in such a way that audience members are asked to put on VR goggles. They themselves and the VR devices next to them become the subject on view as a whole. The viewer is now akin to a work of sculpture. As such, the subject is two-fold, the viewer entering the VR realm, and the viewer in physical reality. Such a relationship is formed and the elements we see onsite reveal to us this vast span of space and time. This makes us feel as if time and space are unfolding further for us to peer into. Much of what occupies our minds may be what is happening within these five years, or even these few months. However, from an archaeological point of view, events unfold in such a way that we have a small role over the course of centuries or millennia. I believe this work offers an alternative worldview by recognising that we are a small part of the vastness of history, we become aware of the continuity of space and time.

PAN DAIJING: I would say the idea of music runs in my veins. It’s something I can . . . it’s my muscle. No matter what I do, it will be there. I feel there is also a bigger question beyond music, which is also performativity: How the audience’s body travels through the space, how the work sees through itself, how it engages with the light and space, and how the architecture itself manifests its performativity through my work, through my artistic filter.

All the work I create is [about] what music can do to us. In general, the idea of composition is not just composing with [musical] notes or composing with sound textures, let alone working heavily with analogue electronics and human voice acoustically.

In a way, I think it’s more in tune with the architecture of where you’re constructing. I also compose with movement, which makes me a choreographer. I composed with light and motion, and I make films.

My work in general, comes from a sense of engagement with architecture. That’s how I like to root it. It’s an emotional, physical, and mental response to a space. But the way I engage with space, and the sequence of my work unfolds itself naturally sits in the situation that demands a much more immersive environment.

The idea of a totality, a whole. It’s maybe a good departure point to interact or engage with my work is to unlearn, to come with no bias, and to come with no category. Everybody wants a shortcut to what it is, so I hope people coming to engage with my work can unlearn those shortcuts and take a little bit more time to just feel how they feel. Not [to think] what the work is, but [to feel] how I feel when I am in this. What triggers me? Do I hear some sound? Is it too spooky? Does it trigger my fear?

Maybe the idea of intuitively wanting to be in the corner [of the gallery]—that I want the work to be tucked away in a group show, hopefully, would generate a sense of discovery for the sequence when people step into different work.

I think my work process is quite simple. I spend really long hours thinking. Berlin is a great place, especially in the winter here, so it becomes kind of a habit. There's no strategy behind it. It just naturally becomes very much like long days, weeks, months of thinking, reflecting, researching, distilling any sort of experience I expose myself to. Be it books, be it records, be it films, be it concerts, be it exhibitions or conversations with friends, or long walks, I think all of this contributes to this process. I’m personally very grateful to be based here, to have a home here, because what it gives me essentially, I think, for my practice, is really an emotionally safe environment to be brave.

My whole practice is very rooted in the concern for humans. I think it’s a very urgent matter of the time we’re in. The kind of relationship between technology and the analogue [is about] how us as people situate in a world that’s in constant debate between the artificial and the organic.

If anything, I don’t think, and I wish my work would never [take a certain form], because that creates a hierarchy in the experience itself. I hope it would open the gates to questions of curiosity, and that it would make people question certain things or find unfamiliarity in the familiar. It’s important to advocate or to stand behind some gestures of strength that we’re not giving in or giving up. It comes to the concern of humans. It’s not just people, it’s humanity at large.

I’m definitely concerned with the acceleration that we’re all exposed to. And I think it’s very urgent for the artists who are at the frontier dedicating themselves, their lives, their time and the resources that we’re able to gather around us and redistribute them, redistribute them in a way to make something that really matters, not just to ourselves, not to the life of an artist, but maybe something bigger than that.

HO RUI AN: I always see images as a very productive material for me to understand a society at any given moment. I look at the question of labour, specifically the relationship between labour and technology in a time where we are surrounded by AI-generated images, or what I would call images that appear to have no history.

I found this to be a very interesting location to really understand these two sides of Singapore. One that is more about its policy for managing its population and the other is more about how Singapore is connected to the outside world. Being here in this particular site and seeing how it is so cluttered by all these tankers, these oil refineries.

This area is the neighbourhood where I grew up. Behind me, actually you can see all the public housing flats. It is not just about providing shelter for the people. It is also very much a tool for managing and governing the population. It has a lot to do also with labour policy, with reproductive policy. The way that I see the world, understand the world, things I used to take for granted about Singapore became...appeared to me in more clarity after I saw Singapore from the outside. So I think to understand Singapore as a place, as a location, you really first have to understand its place within the global system. A lot of my work is transnational. And when I research, I’m looking at archives. Basically [I’m] always trying to gather all kinds of visual material that can help me understand a given phenomenon that tends to be quite abstract.

One of the forms in which my artworks take is that of the lecture. I approached the lecture as a performative and artistic medium. It is a medium in which I feel I can bring together different materials that I have gathered over the course of my research. It allows me to move from talking about something quite historical to something quite contemporary. What appeals to me about the lecture as a form is its kind of essayistic structure.

I’m presenting a lecture and installation called ‘Figures of History and the Grounds of Intelligence’. In a lot of my previous works I look specifically at the relationship between labour and technology. It’s still very much at the centre of this current body of work, looking at generative AI and specifically the history, and the politics of generative AI. The body of work looks at the place of history today in a time where we are surrounded by AI-generated images, or what I would call images that appear to have no history. The starting point of the work was back in 2016. At that time, I had been invited to join a summit that was showing us an application that you upload with a face that appears in one of the paintings within Google’s art collection. It was specifically the face of this little boy in this painting. This painting is called ‘Epic Poem of Malaya’. It’s painted by Chua Mia Tee, and it was matched with this face of a Chinese man. And that really made me start to contemplate what was really at stake in this movement of this painting. This is not just a movement from one place to another, it is also a movement from one system of power to another, an emerging and much more contemporary system of power that we are all trying to navigate today. So, I was really trying to think about what was happening in this movement of this painting as it entered the neural networks of a multinational corporation. What I do think is radically new are the new systems of power through which generative AI is produced and consumed. This is a system of power that is much more complex than the older systems of power that we are used to especially if we are coming from a paradigm dominated by nation-states. Today, what we are seeing is that states are struggling and failing to regulate AI. Well, at the same time, interestingly technological companies are trying, but at the same time failing to act like states.

Coming from Singapore, I think this is a place where people are very quick to adopt new technologies. But very often, there isn’t really a critical reflection on what it is exactly that we are using. This is a more crucial moment than ever to start reflecting on these new technological forms that are increasingly coming to govern every aspect of our lives. The question is really how do we then collectively safeguard what is really a kind of commons in terms of this vast archive of images that you really at the end of the day can’t really define as belonging to one individual or another, but it is really part of our collective heritage as humans.

WONG PING: (Cantonese) I don’t intend to conceal anything in my work. I’ve often said that animation helps me express myself. No one really knows whether my stories are based on fact or fiction. So, I started adding more real-life elements. But the viewers don’t seem to mind either way. I prefer things to be more ambiguous, more vague.

I’ve read in an article that guys bond over sports and hobbies. There’s a sauna facility at the place where I exercise these days. I went inside to take a look and saw people engaged in such conversations, and they were strangers. That got me thinking: Does every sauna in sports facilities have its own kind of tension? For instance, what do golfers talk about in the sauna after their game — relationships, politics, or business? But then I might not talk about football or golf [in those sauna rooms]. The bonds can be about the tension within.

I don’t really work with themes in my animations. Give me any topic, and I will put my twist on it. This work uses golf as its theme, but there are many smaller ideas in it. Each time I create, it doesn’t necessarily have a narrative. I might discuss something silly or express some feelings. For instance, in live golf broadcasts, the camera often tries to capture the ball in mid-air. I don’t know what purpose that serves. There are, in fact, many such trivial matters. My work isn’t very abstract. I just keep on talking, almost like in a conversation. I talk about what I’m thinking. I’m not trying to explain things to others, or to make them understand me. So, with everything, I just touch on it and leave it there. Not being ambiguous, just touching lightly on things. So, a lot of these don’t have to make sense. That diversity comes from the collision of ideas free from the rational constraint.

This is especially evident after I opened my shop in Sheung Wan. I realised there are hidden talents everywhere. Not just in Hong Kong; it’s the same worldwide. It’s just that they do not turn their talents into a career. Rather, those remain their obsessions or hobbies. In those past two years at that ground-floor studio. It was quite stimulating without me having had to do much. I don’t know if the people and things I got to know in those two years would do anything for me creatively. But for me personally, they definitely have. That sense of stimulation, fun, and joy has certainly benefited me. That kind of stimulation is... I just have to wait for people to step into my world. There were so many of them and the seats were never empty. It’s as if I were diagnosing them like a Chinese medical practitioner. With so many people in the world, there’s not enough time to get to know every one of them. It’s more interesting to have more of such interactions.

When I create a work alone, I don’t think about the visuals while I write because I want to separate them as much as possible. I don’t feel the need to make sense of what I’m creating, and I don’t worry about whether I can turn the script into images. When it comes to creating the visuals, I’m not concerned about how a character will turn out. This part of the process can feel tedious, so I try to keep myself entertained. Voiceover recording isn’t something I particularly enjoy. But still, I need to use my voice. People often tell me to get an assistant, but animation works are rarely created by one or two people; it’s mostly a collective effort. But I think it is what it is. It’s the journey I have to go through. When I’m 50%, 60% done writing my script, I switch to drawing. After that, I turn the drawings into an animation. During that process, I face many obstacles, but those setbacks excite me even more. I don’t want to give you the answers straight. Eventually, I realised it’s not my job to give my work meaning as long as people bring their own thoughts to it. If I can say what I want to say and tell my stories at my own pace, that’s good enough for me.

BI RONGRONG: (Mandarin) My skin, my bodily tissue, meridian channels and DNA are a type of weave. Thunderbolts are also a weave of sorts. Wind and rain are a weave. Sunlight, shafts of light are also a weave. Seen in this light, the world is a woven structure.

Everything we perceive is, in a way, a representation, a sign…for landscape, which could be the veins on a leaf, the ebb and flow of water. But underlying everything is a core, an intended emptiness that connects to the interior and exterior, and enables the various mediums to interweave with each other naturally.

As I delved into one of the stories, I began to gain clarity. It’s like when I first learnt traditional Chinese painting, the lines I kept practising might have all come from convention. But after that, practice needs to be integrated relentlessly into life, into nature; it has to engage in continuous dialogue with the world. Weaving opens the door, which allows the lines to become increasingly rich. They can transform into any medium, interweaving seamlessly with the lines created by ink and brush. It is only then, perhaps, that the lines are truly shaping me and showing me that underneath it all is my relationship with the world.

In ancient Europe, when people first began making textiles, they sewed and pieced fabric scraps together in a way similar to shoelacing. This method is still in use today. Another method was creating holes in the cloth, producing new spaces in the fabric. These spaces were then sewn over using a method of reconnection. Hence, new holes would be created which would subsequently be patched. This back-and-forth is repeated throughout the life of lace.

While reading books, I came across an interesting point. The Yoruba women in Nigeria would use small knives to inscribe markings onto their skin, which, when healed, became scars. In sunlight, these scars formed positive and negative spaces with a lace-like texture. This project compelled me to seek out such histories.

I acquired these six sets of patterns during my travels. I compared patterns from different regions and periods, and selected six. Their styles are, relatively speaking, basic and ancient. One could say they were the backbone, the skeleton for many patterns that came after. This project traces this underlying framework. It could be a form or a sign, but beneath these patterns is an inexorable momentum. This powerful momentum can help us understand and converse with the universe.

My residency at TaDA last year gave me an opportunity to scrutinise the materials and connect the dots between textiles and other mediums.

It’s a lens, a method for observing the world, and like I said in the beginning, a way of weaving. It’s not a mountain, a river or a city. It’s a pattern, a sheet of metal. It’s a method at once abstract and concrete that allows mediums to integrate.

This process was also inspiring in that it opened many doors, created many possibilities. I might not be able to resolve the contradictions, but perhaps I could preserve them, connect with them, and narrate them in a different way.