The term of Digital Art seems covered a very large aspect. Photography, moving images, and even the art works made by computing systems are all digital art. This term is not familiar and favors Hong Kong people. They try to use the term more precisely. That is new media art or multi media art. Hong Kong artists will not create their artwork in terms of one particular form but “mix” the forms, for example, combining installation and moving images to create art form. However, HUNG Keung is quite a special artist in Hong Kong as he termed his art works are interactive art. Interactive art emphasize the interaction between viewers and the computing system in which coming out with interesting visual impacts on screen. In the following parts, I would like to discuss the representation of the body, the works of HUNG Keung, with reference to particular works.
After an in-dept research of HUNG Keung’s backgrounds, it was interesting that the study in England aroused his thinking and creativity in 1996, although he was born in Hong Kong and graduated in 1992 from the School of Design, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. He studied MA major in film and video at the Central Saint Martin’s College of Art and Design. In England, he became sensitive and thought of many ideas and did quite a lot moving images. He stated the Professor Alan Pau made a great impact on him on the different viewpoint on Modern Sculpture. Another point is that the cultural differences between Britain and Hong Kong are so different. HUNG Keung took an example that people kiss each other and there were always body interaction between people, however, we will not kiss friends and usually make a hug to strangers. Both academic and cultural aspects explored his vision and let him experienced a lot during the day. Therefore, the study in England became the sources for him to work in interactive art after he came back to Hong Kong in 1998.
“Human being and moving images” is the first project that HUNG Keung studied the interaction between human being and moving images through a CD-Rom package in 1997-2001. He tried to explore the symbolic code of the hidden meaning of our usual human manner in terms of the body, the mind, such loving, dreaming, smiling, movement, such as talking, walking, energy, such as releasing, and senses, such as seeing. One part of the project was the five organs of human body, and his friend, Brian designed the animation to these five organs (see pic 1-5). Once the audiences clicked one of the organs, the organ will shake and sounds will be produced. For example, the ear represent human movement—walking. The sound of walking will be produced when you click it in the program. HUNG Keung tried to express the relationship between the human organs and the human senses. In the example of ear organ, we not only hear sounds through ear, we can hear walking. That means we can hear body movement in which we mainly use vision to sense the body movement. One another part is a series of moving images taking people close up. By using computing software, several images were combined on one screen and playing at the same times (see pic 6). In the program, once the mouse click one of the images, other people in the images will look at the images and give different reactions. He wanted to question whether the facial expression and reaction people give to others at one time really the true reactions in their mind. The most impressive part is the sightseeing. Four moving images played at the same time on the screen, the clips were taken on the same way but four direction, front, left, right ad back separately. HUNG Keung questioned the human limitation on sightseeing and produce the illusion at horizontal level viewpoint. We cannot see 360 degree at the same time, but through this work, we can try to imagine we are fly. This was the first try and first start of HUNG Keung to study the interaction between human body and moving images. It can be seen that he was groping out some interesting elements on the function of human body.
HUNG Keung thinks of the limitation of computing software cause the difficulties to make the ideas coming true. He described the existing software was a box with limited size. Digital media is a platform to do any kind of artwork. If we remove the box, there will be no limitation to the usability. Thus, he developed the innov+media lab (imhk) with different technological professionals and designers and developed much particular and specific software for particular interactive art. During the continuous development of computing software, he wanted to seek out the interaction between the moving things and the software; thus, human body movement became an essential tool to test the interaction. (see pic 12-13) the insects followed the movement of the human being in which it seems the insects stick on the human body on screen and human being can remove the insects. Thus, an interesting interaction is shown on the screen.
With the continuous development of this software, insects were changed to any patterns such as dots and words or interactive puzzles. (see pic 14-15) From the project of “Navigating Images, Falling Angel and Heavy Angel, 04-05” to “Interactive Art: Installation—Beyond Modern Sculpture, 07”, both using the same software to present the same interaction. The only differences were the participation of different audiences and more colorful interactive puzzles were used. I tried to interpret the interaction by self-experiences. When viewers move their bodies, they look at the variation of the imaging on the screen. It is a very interesting process to explore our own body on screen.
“Bloated City Skinny Language” was first exhibited in Mainland China (2006) and later had the second version in Hong Kong during the “Chinglish” exhibition (2007). The idea of bloated city was come from the urbanization of cities in Mainland. Much traditional architecture was dismantled and new buildings were built up. It likes women taking cosmetic surgery on breast; the idea of skinny language was come from the announcement of the legislation of simplified Chinese in 2008 from the United Nations. In the art work, the simplified Chinese and the traditional Chinese words were not the whole entire words, which symbolized the new buildings and old buildings separately. From the usage of Chinese words, there were similar experiment project called “Interactive mouth”, which also the interaction between Chinese words and the mouth on screen. On this basis, it is believed that these works would be the starting point of HUNG Keung new study target.
HUNG Keung played with the function of human body and moving images for several years. He started to think of a conclusion of his work and the project of “Eating Noodles” could be a conclusion of the study of human body. The idea of this artwork is the biological circle of human being. In the moving images, when the model eats the noodles (input), the hair will grow and shrivel continuously (output). The repetition was generated through the editing of and combining of fames. HUNG Keung said that he thought of this idea ten years ago. However, there was no computing technology in the past. Thus, he took the moving images and edited the fames later for the Shanghai MOCA exhibition in 2007. He stated there are different directions of the Noodles Eating, but only the front images were shown on the exhibition (see pic 8-11). It is a very interesting artwork for the viewers; however, the most interesting thing is that technology is not a tool or object for him to present his idea in here. Imaging always is part of his work. It seems that he tried to use technology to explore the limitation of human being. What we neglect and difficult to recognize in normal daily life can be captured and shown through media images. If there is no digital images in HUNG Keung’ work, we cannot capture his ideas. Therefore, HUNG Keung is neither plays for camera nor play at camera; he is play with camera.
In the research period, it was interesting to know more about Hong Kong artists and HUNG Keung is really special artist. In future time, HUNG Keung said he will focus on the study on Chinese words, especially the relation between simplified Chinese and traditional Chinese words, the relationship of the transform of the Chinese words and cultural and social development, even the symbols and semiotics of Chinese words. Look forward to see his new work in future.
References:
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