By Visual Production
Visual production: What kind of media did you use before engaging in network art?
Shu Lea Cheang: I started to create computer programmed video installation since the early 1990s. As for the network art works, I believe it's from my film FRESH KILL in 1994. In this film, I invented a vocabulary "Cybernoia: cyber-noia" to discuss the massive invasion of IT, and predict the future conflict between transnational media and IT hackers. The script was finished in 1991-1993. And by the time the film wrapped and in premier in 1994, "network" had become a popular and mainstream medium. In the same year, the first time in my life I saw a network art works. It's Muntadas' the File Room, produced with Mosaic browser (the predecessor of Netscape browser).
In 1994 and 1995, I went to Japan for research under the auspices of National Endowment on the Arts. Getting the permission to use computer lab of Tokyo University, I began my exploration journey in network world.
In 1995, I was commissioned by Walker Art Center to create an installation works. The program was supported by AT&T New Art/New Vision. I was ready to use ISDN network (ISDN is a type of network transmission system). My creation Bowling Alley is a large-scale installation connecting bowling alley and art museum. My intention was to probe into the notions of public and private space. It was just the time when the National Congress of the U.S. approved Internet Decency Act.
From then on I began to create works based on network.
Network enables time and space to travel. I bury myself in my virtual existence.
Visual production: It seems that your name is always accompanied by "network art" and "network artist". Do you find it's appropriate to address you "media installation artist"?
Cheang: Yes. I am media artist, installation artist, network artist, public art, performance artist and also a filmmaker. Depending on the project, I choose particular medium to work with.
Visual production: I have noticed that many of your works are completed under the support of Japanese institutions. Besides, you are famed in Japan. Can you say Japan provides you with a broader space for creation?
Cheang: Ah, yes. I left Taiwan after college and made my name in New York. I was not invited by Taiwan for exhibition till year 2000 Biennale at Taibei Fine Arts museum. Japan was the closest i got to Asia for a log time. In Japan, i can work both in networked media scene (with NTT [ICC]) and in independent film scene (with Uplink co.) They do understand my work and also allow me to be extravaganza and outrageous...
Visual production: Your network art works emphasize more on the interaction with the audience, which differs from the traditional way of passive acceptance. Network media show the audience unexpected content. Is it a major tendency for art to develop in the future?
Cheang: Interactive work is not limited in net art practice. I consider there is 'traditional' kind of art work can be called interactive. I am playing a lot with sensor and network technology that stretches out to public space. We do live in the technology mediated environment. As for the future development of art, i can not say much, as it seems to be dominated by art market more than ever.
Visual production: When you are carrying out your "network art programs", do you confront unexpected matters every time? If so, is it the enchanting feature of art ology creation?
Cheang: Yes. In my kind of art practice (networked art or filmmaking), I do need to collaborate with designers, programmers and performers. I enjoyed their input very much. Often my sketches provide a blue print and the collaboration elevates it to another level. Nothing particularly unexpected, but always venturesome and exciting. I do enjoy all kinds of challenges.
Visual production: How do you cope with the conflict between art and technology while creating works?
Cheang: Ah!! Confliction and solution. I guess we have to talk about this case by case. Usually, for every project, i do some technical research if a certain new technology is required. Based on research, i will seek expertise to help developing. I was often told by technicians that 'it is not
possible' to achieve what i want. But this also presents a challenge to the tech geeks. At the end, the collaboration can happen! I am often quite demanding with tech end for its performance. But I also do not talk nonsense or being unrealistic, so finally we always do find a way. I guess mainly is to go through conceptual communication.
Visual production: Many people who have seen your works “Sex Network IKU” make the comment that you have interpreted pornography from the cs. What perspective of contemporary aesthetics?
Cheang: Oh, really? has I.K.U. being shown (or pirated) in China? if so, i am happy. I.K.U. is of course very connected to my networked/gender studies type of art. I hope to make I.K.U. 2 in a rougher sex way.
Visual production: Your previous works mostly relate to sex and politics. What kind of idea do you want to bring to the audience?
Cheang: Sex, sex and politics, is one strand of my work. I guess throughout the years, i did develop a series of sex work. I am not dealing with morality much. Particularly with my Chinese background, i try to relieve myself all morality burden. I consider sex is part of (artist) life, why not talk about it.
My first major sex project, Those Fluttering Objects of Desire (show in Why exists an alternative community which i can Whitney Biennale 2003), gathered a range of artists/writers/performers for sex/politics discourse. I.K.U. is also about porn politics. Guess politics of sex is more the issue i am dealing with. At the same time, i think orgasm, collective orgasm, is much desirable.
Visual production: In your works, we observed you pay attention to some disadvantaged people, such as gay and so on. You pay special attention to theirs living state and confuse, why?
Cheang: Maybe it does have something with my being an immigrant in New York City? In the 80s, in New York, I was quite active in media activism that counters mainstream media. It was also a time of ACT UP being on the streets! Many menifestations of my 80s in New York city... my work is in solidarity.
Visual production: What is the effect in your creating if the merging of the various cultures while living in New York for years and taking a tour around the word?
Cheang: I was mostly based in New York 1977-1997 and afterwards in Tokyo and Europe. Currently i am based in Paris. In each country, I am very involved with local artists and alternative communities. I also collaborate with local artists and technical persons. Already, each society exists an alternative community which i can easily plug in. Mostly, it is about conceptual communication in our work, in our approach. We speak the same language in the electronic-digital media. It is always important to situate oneself in the social network of each community, i think.
Visual production: How do you like the art scene and atmosphere of mainland China?
Cheang: Unfortunately, i have very little opportunity to show in China. So far, I have only been in Beijing twice. Chinese artists are march en masse in the international art scene.The last i was in Beijing (2005), it seems that there is a good channel for international exchange. Am I right? Ah, I would like to be able to work in China more... Bring BabyLove to Beijing and also for new collaboration.
Shu Lea Cheang
About "Baby Love"
Project Background
The Locker Baby project, first conceived in 2001, consists of 3 installation plans : Baby play, Baby love, and Baby work. The first installment, Baby play, was commissioned and exhibited at NTT[ICC]( InterCommunication Center ), in Tokyo in 2001. The Locker Baby project recalls Ryu MurakamI's noted novel Coin Locker Babies (1980) in which two boys abandoned at birth in one square foot metal boxes grew up haunted with the sound of human heart beats, those of their birth mothers. The updated version of Locker baby proposes a fictional scenario set in year 2030. The DPT (DollyPolly Transgency) clones locker babies with genes extracted from deep sea pearls harvested off Okinawa Island . Coin lockers situated in busy Tokyo train stations are the breeding grounds for underworld test tube locker babies. The biobot locker babies are the clone generation of our scifi fantasia reality, entrusted to receive, store, transmit and negotiate human memory and emotion. Locker baby holds the key to unlock a networked inter-sphere of ME (Memory-Emotion ) data.
Baby Love - concept
Baby Love situates human and its baby clones in a perpetual spin of fairground teacup ride. Tea and sympathy, love and ME-motion. Love songs, uploaded by the public and transmitted via 802.11 wireless network by the public are coded as ME-data in the cloned locker babies. Revolt against mirrored self, the clone babies reprocess the networked ME-data during the joy teacup ride. By taking a teacup ride with the babies, the ME-data are retrieved, played back, shuffled, and jumbled. A gentle ride turned fast spin, the data jams and jammed, we are left to sort out the ME with the babies in the storming teacups. The crash would eventually happen. Upon the carsh when the teacups bump into each other, the clone babies exchange ME data and broadcast the remix on the web.
A mobile wifi installation
Baby Love is a mobile wifi installation that consists of 6 large size (160 diameter) teacups and 6 clone babies (70 cm tall). The teacup modelled after the spinning teacup of the old-time playground is designed into an auto-spinning unit. The teacup made in light-weight, anti-corrosive FRP (Fiber Glass Reinforced Plastics), is equipped with two motors (320 watts each unit), , spinning wheels and electronic sensor system for the speed control and direction maneuver. On each of the teacup, a hand-made clone baby in silicon rubber. The baby, adorned with a locker key, a LED display with locker numbers running, is installed with a baby machine (a mac-mini with 802.11 wifi) that serves as sound-processing unit.
The crash
The teacup's bottom plate (178cm diameter) is inflated with a layer of silicon tube enclosing a circular strip of contact bumper. When the two teacups bump into each other, the bumper sensor detects the crash moment and sends signal (via wifi 802.11) to the web server and baby machine. Upon the crash, the babies swap mp3 files and reproduce the baby's own remix. The crash data is recorded and remixed mp3 streamed on the web.
the network scheme
Baby Love invites the public to upload mp3 love songs for baby's ME-data. Through the web interface and on site card reader (reads from i-pod, mp3 player or any memory cards), the uploaded mp3 files are recoded for ME-database and retrieved by baby machine via wireless network. Upon receiving the data, the mp3 file is analyzed and segments looped for repeated learning.
Teacup Sensor System
The micro-processor installed inside the teacup takes in sensor data - speed and direction on spinning wheel, stop sensor on teacup handle, bumper sensor around the teacup plate. The speed 0 is for stop and 1, 2, 3 is variable. Auto and Manual mode is controlled by the riders of the teacup. The sensor data via RS232 device and 802.11 wifi is sent to the baby machine, where a maxSP program is written to respond to all sensor data.
Sound Engine
The baby installed with a mac-mini and MaxSP retrives mp3 files from the servers. The mp3 is decoded and analyzed (beats, density, phrase). Looped segments are defined for baby's repeat learning. The sensor data sent from the moving teacup, speed (0,1,2,3) and direction (left-right), is programmed to shuffle the mp3 files, back and forth and in varible speed. The mp3 files, a la LP mode of scratch, are scrambled, in sync with the teacup's moving speed and direction. The crash occurs When the two teacups bump into each other. Upon the crash, the baby(machine) exchange loops of mp3 files. The elements are remixed and streamed on the web with new encoding (titled: B-00000). The CRASH data documents the time and date of the crash and archives the remixed mp3 files.