/// SLASH \\\ LEE\VAKULYA
展覽介紹
“ Today’s society is no longer Foucault!s disciplinary world of hospitals, madhouses, prisons, barracks, and factories. It has long been replaced by another regime, namely a society of fitness studios, office towers, banks, airports, shopping malls, and genetic labs. It isn!t a disciplinary society anymore, but an achievement one. We are “ ‘all’ subjects of achievements. ”
—— Byung-Chul Han, The Burnout Society
/// SLASH \\\ is a space that holds several video artworks which are created by LEE\VAKULYA, a Belgium based dance company led by Chen-Wei Lee and Vakulya Zoltán. They work with visual artist Ding-Yeh Wang as their creative advisor whom they have collaborated for longterm in several stage works and gallery space.
/// SLASH \\\ is a part of a 3-year long artistic research and creative process that started in 2021, with the first creation for the stage “ BURNT [the eternal long now] ”which has won the Taishin Performing Arts Award 2023. This exhibition is in line with the theme of BURNT and has partially grown out of the research period and the creative process.
With each video work involves the thinking in the creation process, it transformed to the video with different physical engagement/ performativity /format. The research closely examines the dynamic between achievement and exhaustion through burn-out syndrome.
According to Dutch sociologist, Fred L. Polak in his book The image of the future (1961), “ Every man leads a double life.” For Polak, this dualism was the indispensable prerequisite for the movement of events in time and for the dynamic of historical change.
However, today “ a double life” seems an understatement. With the quick development of digital technologies in the last decades, how many lives has this led us to lead simultaneously? How do we (ac)count (for) the myriad of selves we manage across platforms, spaces, profiles, and interfaces?
For most of the people, these lives” have multiplied over time: the Facebook Self differs from the LinkedIn Self as does the Professional Self of the office calendar, in contrast to the Imaged Self on Instagram or the Quantified Self on one’s FitBit. Within this intense fracturing, the idea of a “ double life” seems romantically simple.
Artist's Statement
LEE\VAKULYA is a collaborative duo by Chen-Wei Lee and Vakulya Zoltán Based in Brussels, the two have been working together since 2016, making several stage works and museum/gallery format exhibitions and performances.
LEE\VAKULYA has been dedicated to slowly crystallising their very own approach to movement, which comes together from their own physical research, as moving body is the centrefold in their work, but it belongs to and interacts with the social body as their main interest in the concept.
They have been touring their work internationally such as Belgium, The Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Spain, Hungary, Israel, United Kingdom, USA, South-Korea and Taiwan…
Their work have been nominated for Total Theatre Award 2017 (United Kingdom), TaiShin Arts Award for final list in 2016, 2019, 2021 (Taiwan), and in 2023 LEE\VAKULYA won the TaiShin Performing Arts Award. They create together and individually as well, Chen-Wei Lee won TECO award of Dance 2017. Vakulya Zoltán won Jeon Mak Arts Award 2017, and nominated for the Best Choreography Prize for the theater play, commissioned by Serbian National Theater.
Their artistic view is focused on the delicate relations between human beings and society while touching on vulnerable issues on the questions of boundaries and proximity, they push the limits of partnership and empathy.
Artists’ website: https://www.leevakulya.com/
Works Introduction
Each and every art work has its own unique process through which it manifest it self, as well as how the artist is in creation process.
Throughout history, every era had its specificity, habits, and rules for making art. As a spectator we praise the result or neglect it, it ripples in us for days or fades within minutes. This experience of enjoying art starts most of the time from the moment when the artist is ‘done’ with the work.
However, an art piece is merely a point in the creation process and doesn’t include much of the work present in the dialogue between the maker and selves point of interest.
Imagine that you have one chance to create an image in any of your desired settings.
Challenged by one single action Chen-Wei Lee and Vakulya Zoltán contemplate their core interest and ultimately the meaning of creation.
Filtering thoughts, and crystallising an idea has always been part of their practice since they created works for the stage, yet for this exhibition, they decided to shed light on something to which they never turned the spotlight on.
How do you get from inspiration to realisation, without qualification or quantification to effective problem-solving/decision-making?
The artistic process is a complex multiplicity of processes, in which Chen-Wei Lee and Vakulya Zoltán knit their way through dialogues, try-outs, imaginations and uncertainties.
Credits
Creation : LEE\VAKULYA Chen-Wei Lee, Vakulya Zoltán
Artistic advisor : Ding-Yeh Wang
D.O.P : Shane, Y1, Eddie Lian, Nick Wu
Video edit : LEE\VAKULYA , Shane
Subtitle translation：Joanne Shyue, Mina Wang
Colorist：Shane
Sound design : Zi-Ming Feng
Still photography：SICA, CHIUyU
Stunt guidance : Bruce Movie Special Effects CO., LTD.
Special Effects Technician：Chia-Liang Lin, Wei-Chang Tseng, Ko-Chin Lu
Administration : Dynamo Management
Production : LEE\VAKULYA
Supervisor
Taipei City Government
Organizer
Department of Cultural Affairs, Taipei City Government
Digital Art Center, Taipei
Sponser
National Culture and Arts Foundation
NSFG Foundation
Sunny Weng
Venue
Digital Art Center, Taipei
No. 180, Fuhua Rd., Shilin Dist., Taipei City, Taiwan
Events
Opening & Guided Tour
2023.10.07 Sat. 17:00-21:00
Artist Talk
2023.10.07 Sat. 17:00-18:00