| MOSAIC OF THE LIGHTS Public art, 2013 Material: Mosaic tiles (glass, ceramic, metal), metal frame, fiber optic lighting system and etc. Dimensions: Variable Project description: The competition proposal of public art for the new subway station in Taipei, collaboration with an artist, E Chen, finalist. Interior decoration with interactive illuminations over the two structural posts of the subway passage. Location: Passageway of the Sungshan subway station, Taipei |
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| Celebration of life: The threshold of bringing the personal opinions and expressions into the public place is lower than ever. It represents the maturity of society, and is a matter to be welcome. On the other hand, as a side-effect of the change, it is getting more difficult to understand or control the public in bulk. We think that the style of public art itself should respond to the change as well. And, this site is very “public” among the many public spaces. It is a space that the same person walks through every day as a part of his commuting route. Ideally, the artwork should look differently each time in a subtle way for as many people as possible. “Celebration of the life,” in our opinions, will not be expressed by a single authoritarian expression but by the fluctuating and abstract expressions. Personal and social aspects: Society today consists of the cluster of people that are different in their race, sex, hobby, nation, age… The clusters are also varied, as permanent and ephemeral one, deep and shallow one, diverse and uniform one, and so force coexist. What in common about them is that we do not get the proper idea unless we have both panoramic view and detailed observations. A good example is about the well known ‘night markets’ in Taiwan. We, even as foreigners have a clear idea about it as an entity expressing a charming aspect of lives. On the other hand, if we only look at a single shop in narrow angle, it is nothing more than one of numerous local restaurants that continue to change to survive. Each tile represents people or single activity of them. The outlines of them are nearly identical but the surfaces are varied. The dishes are practically used to hold tiles and also conceptually represent clusters of people. One unit panel consists of several dishes and will be fixed with the steel frame. The joint is usually considered as an obstacle for the homogeneity of the work, but it is a part of the expression for this case. The artificial light (LED bulbs behind the tiles) represents the moment when each person or activity receives the attentions or evaluations. And finally, the small metal surfaces here and there reflect the faces of passes-by and connotes the holistic view of life, which is that all of the serious environment and hardship we experience can be the part of entertainment for our own. We knit the social aspects as described above as a single and concrete expression of art. Tiles | People Dishes | Clusters Joint and Frame | Local rules, manners, laws Posts | Overview of the society Light | Celebration of life Reflective metal | Social relationship |