ECHO CHAMBER/ BREATH

Echo Chamber/ Breath, was developed and performed at the Taipei Artists' Village in January - February 2017. Through this exploration, we produced three distinct outcomes; an intimate one-on-one sound and touch based performance (Feb 14-15), a multimedia installation for the Season One artist-in-residence Exhibition (Feb 17– Mar 12), and a short video art work called Body A(r)mour presented as part of the Exhibition.

                         

The Echo Chamber/Breath performance was a 10-minute one-on-one sound and touch based immersive experience exploring personal space and vulnerability in the urban environment. The performance installation was inspired by our experiences in Taipei and influenced by two key factors: Taipei’s air pollution and Taiwan’s diminishing birth rate. Our creative development started with questions about the nature of collective vulnerability in the contemporary urban landscape, and how the urban and natural landscapes intersect. As the project developed we explored how our social patterns shift, cultural ties loosen, and aspirations change in our modern, urban cities and consumer driven culture. What we gain in convenience, we lose in connection to each other. What we gain in short-term comforts, we lose in long-term sustainability.

 

We decided to work with a series of opposites, something natural embodied by something artificial - a vending machine for human connection, the fresh air of the mountains simulated by a kitchen full of electric fans where everything is wrapped in plastic and ‘preserved for your freshness’, the moment of birth as a day-spa style ritual using kitsch, throw away objects, and the vastness of the skyline as a maze of curtains as claustrophobic and tactile as Taipei’s smog. Each of these became a separate ‘room’ of the performance installation.