Video/Film
6 channels video installation, color, sound, Loop 05'00
0The work Room003–Inferiority Bat originated from the traditional religious custom of burning paper mansions for the deceased, a custom prevailed in the northern region of Taiwan. Previously, people tended to extend the duration of obsequies and fix a date auspicious for burning the ordered paper effigies and other offerings for the deceased. Nowadays, those paper-pasted offerings supposed to be bought and burned have become dead stock since this traditional custom is dying out. As a consequence, hanging on the ceiling of the artist’s house are unsaleable products such as paper-pasted flowers, horses, mansions, puppets and the golden boy and jade maiden wrapped in plastic bags for preservation, as if a group of bats roosted in the store. This work drew much of its inspiration from the cul-de-sac that the traditional culture has faced in the advanced civilization. Using his exquisite craftsmanship, the artist demystified these puppets, birds, vultures and dogs made of old newspaper and hanged them upside down, making them uncannily resemble a group of “bats” out of the limelight of the civilization. In this sense, the shadows of these “bats” thrown onto the background referred not so much to image or appearance as to the rules of survival for a traditional culture against the civilization attempting to consign it to oblivion. 