The Rat

2023
metal, computer, electronic device

Collaboration:Junyu Chen, Performance Artist

The Rat is a collaborative live performance with artist Chen Junyu. Two chambers were constructed, showcasing a monitored human and a digital body composed of his biological data. As carbon dioxide concentration increases, the human activates a pedal-powered light to display his survival state, while observers report an alternative physiological message based on digital body data.

By detecting vital signs and intervening in performers' physiological changes, the project explores the conflict between natural body and data-driven embodiment in perception and expression. When artistic actions are quantified, the focus shifts to performers and how others quantify them. Any control performers exert becomes a controlled form, creating a dialectical relationship in interpreting life.

In this project, how will this monitored life, transformed from behavioral data, be exhibited? Does shifting from a hybrid installation to a performative form initiate alternative ways of experiencing? This realigns aspects, allowing artists to struggle over bodily control within this dialectical framework.

PERFORMANCE

The Rat
2023

Project Fulfill Arts Space, Taipei