Taipei Robot Man 2.0: Infodemic | Ting-Tong Chang, Hsien-Yu Cheng and Dino

Taipei Robot Man 2.0: Infodemic is a collaborative project between Ting-Tong Chang, Hsien-Yu Cheng and Dino. It utilises digital technologies to transform online trolls and fake news into creative materials for kinetic sculptures and noise music. Aiming to explore how information is produced, processed, circulated and disseminated in the era of the pandemic, the project consists of a series of exhibitions and performances that take place in TheCube Project Space and Longquan wet market.

From Wuhan South China Seafood Wholesale Market to many parts of the world, the global pandemic is believed to have originated from the wet market. Wet markets are platforms of coexistence between humans and animals, the living and the dead, the fresh and the decay. The intermingling of blood and excrement allows interspecies transmission among viruses, parasites and bacterias. Wet markets are also a metaphor for the global digital culture—memes, ideas, customs, fashions, behaviours that spread through the internet. The infectious infodemic has shaped modern democracies. Mass misinformation campaigns promote deceptive, biased and inflammatory messages, often using bots or fake social media accounts. Computational propaganda is widely adapted as tactics during elections in Taiwan and elsewhere. From the 5G conspiracy theory, bleach injection to anti-vaccination, false information about the origin and treatment of the disease have also contributed to the current global health crisis.

Central to Taipei Robot Man 2.0: Infodemic is Hsien-Yu Cheng’s piece of programming that captures and transcodes online trolls and fake news into a live data stream.

In Longquan Market, a wet morning market located in Taipower Building Station, a one-week-exhibition is held using the off-business hours in the evening (2020/09/16-2020/09/23, 6 pm-11 pm). Working with LFP Perfume and Perfume Laboratory, the artists create a series of light installations and ‘scent devices’ that transform the market into a multisensory environment. Systemised by the data stream, it alters spectators’ perception of space through smell, colour and sound.

In TheCube Project Space, the live data stream becomes ‘musical notes’ for Ting-Tong Chang’s kinetic instruments. Made of electronic waste and organic materials from the market, the instruments rotate, vibrate and conduct electricity. They form a musical ensemble with Dino’s noise performance, and create an acoustic environment that synchronizes waste, food and electric signals.

About the artists:

Ting-Tong Chang

Ting-Tong Chang is a Taiwanese artist based in Spain. He received his MFA at Goldsmiths, University of London, and has exhibited internationally, with solo exhibitions at Kunstkraftwerk Leipzig, Asia House London and Taipei Fine Arts Museum. He has participated in group shows and commissioned projects in Guangzhou Triennial, Taipei Biennial, Saatchi Gallery, Compton Verney Art Gallery and Wellcome Trust. Chang’s major awards include RBS Bursary Award 2015, RISE Award 2016 and VIA Arts Prize 2016. His works can be found in the Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Embassy of Brazil London, Noblesse Collection Seoul, JM SR Collection Mexico and private collections in Europe and Asia.

Hsien-Yu Cheng

1984 born in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. Artist & Software developer based in Taipei now.
 Most of Cheng’s works are electronic installations, software, experimental bio-electronic devices. His works are concerned with the relationship between human behavior, emotion, software and machine. He tries to bring out the meaning of life through his works that are filled with his own observation and feelings toward society & environment in a humorous way. He currently focuses on bioelectronic researches, such as free-energy, intelligent sound and developing creative art tools (software and hardware).

Dino

Once a member of the well-known band “The Clippers”, Dino is a representative of the Taiwanese second noise wave in the 90s’. His works demonstrate the noise movement in Taipei from the second half of the 90s, technically a transition towards pure analog electronic sound, a milestone to establish an independent aesthetics.

Dino uses extremely simple analog equipment to create electronic sound, loop were generated from circuitry noise, static, or microphone feedback, a sort of “Recycle Music”.

In recent years, Dino participates in experimental films and live music production for theater. He was awarded Best Sound Effects in Taipei Film Festival. Dino is particularly fond of British punk subculture and traditional Chinese classics, of which the influence can be found from his works.