The NTCAM Lab has invited a diverse group of creators, including product designers, graphic designers, textile designers, florists, photographers, food designers, directors, spatial designers, artists, music producers, service designers, new media artists, and performers to be at the center.
Using the unique characteristics of New Taipei City as the radius, the lab aims to create a space where these creators and the public can intersect and share ideas, hoping to form a new artistic circle in New Taipei City. By playing, working, and making circles together at NTCAM, let's learn and grow together!
Workshop
Studios
B1｜translate: Turning the circle into a new form
Artists: messagingleaving, Jui-Che Wu
Can we see more variations when the edges of form meet the contours of experience?
We go back and forth between different dimensions, attempting to see shadows in two dimensions, and reflecting images in three-dimensionality; and what exists between two and three dimensions?
It's the hidden side of bricks, the obstruction of light, the variations in music, the blurred segments in vintage photos, forsaken empty cans, a directory bereft of phone numbers, musical notations, birds taking flight and returning, high-speed trains, the tilted roofs of tin abodes, plantain trees...
Let circles grow depth in the collage and depict the next abstract or figurative circle.
B2｜quality: The characteristics and symbolism of circles
Artists: James Teng, Kaynken Chen, Yu-Ning Kuo
During the Ming Dynasty, Li Shi-Zhen wrote in Compendium of Materia Medica (Bencao Gangmu): “The people of Lingnan replace tea with betel nuts to guard against miasma. The betel nut has four properties. First, it inebriates the sober. When chewed on for extensive periods, the cheeks become red as if drunk. Su Dong-Po said red cheeks are due to betel nuts. Second, it sobers the inebriated. Therefore, chewing betel nuts after drinking wine relieves chest congestion and awakens the mind, as described by Zhu Hui-An. Third, it alleviates hunger; chewing betel nuts on an empty stomach immediately creates the sensation of fullness, and when eaten when full, it promotes digestion.”
According to statistics gathered by the Executive Yuan Council of Agriculture in 2017, betel nuts are the fruit with the largest cultivation area in Taiwan, 2.5 times the number of bananas, which is listed second. However, in countries such as Turkey, Australia, Singapore, United Arab Emirates, and Canada, betel nuts are classified as drugs and banned due to their Arecoline content, which is hallucinogenic.
Through 〇chewing〇, we explore how tradition and taboos shape our relationship with food and practice appreciating the multivariate experience of eating.
B3｜image: The images or thoughts that circles form in the minds of others
Artist: Ho-Ting Wei
A circle is not just a shape but also represents motion, as in moving in circles. By merging optical principles with rapid rotation, individuals devised a way to deceive the brain, generating the illusion of continuous motion, which marked the advent of a new era for visual experiences. This project employs the rotational mechanics of the Zoetrope, an early optical toy, to construct a light installation that beckons visitors to step inside and immerse themselves in the captivating sensory experience elicited by sheer physical alterations.
Artist: Shih-Ting Hung
Circles in progress, round objects in art museums, circles that are seemingly complete, fractured circles, and shapes that want to become circles but are not, connect into a series that is posted on Instagram the moment it is captured to explore the beauty of imperfection.
Artist: Jay Guan-Jie Peng
Neural Odyssey 3.0 is rooted in codes, AI, and random generative technology. Varieties are generated by creating and changing the parameter of the circle, and the work is presented as a round image. The work not only exhibits the potential of incorporating technological tools in art but also mirrors the spirit of the times in contemporary society, expressing creativity and inspiration through distinctive and unpredictable means.
B4｜collection: Becoming a circle by taking something from a place
Artist: Hong Tze-Ning
Escape Radius is a collaborative work that conducts thought relays in the art space and organizes the radius for escape. When the best survival strategy is determined by the environment and on-site circumstances, then how do we, the ones who do not exist in the same time and space, imagine a radius for escape or survival? Can the route be shared? Personal narratives, abstract, displaced, or nonsensical associations can exist between “actually planning for escape” and “when we (participants) envision an escape radius in the art space,” and we can experiment with ways to play with/complete this relay in this new residence. It would be like the space being visited by one person each month, continuing the last person’s (escape radius) plan…until that day in August.
Artist: Yu-Hsin Ash Lin
The circles of music, photography, art, and other circles…each circle exists in different sizes and forms and has its own unique qualities. Each scene, culture, and lifestyle form and prosper through the common interests and beliefs of strangers from different backgrounds. Despite barren resources and the lack of exposure, the standards that remain untouched by non-mainstream musical scenes are community spirit and DIY spirit, completing a song, a music album, a music video, or an interdisciplinary collaboration through frequent interactions, support, one single person serving multiple roles, and sharing resources.
The artist has long used images and texts as a side document to electronic music scenes. From promotional images to event documentation, most works feature performers under the spotlight, and the artist has racked her brain to attract the attention of more amateurs to the music and has volunteered to enter this unique but weathered culture. Switching between the roles of photographer/writer/producer/brand A&R/amateur DJ, Lin’s mission is to document the images of the people behind the scenes. The artist extends the DIY method to capturing the scintillating images of behind-the-scenes musicians and re-organizes interviews into writing forms that are often used in the circle, featuring behind-the-scenes personnel, who often only appear in tidbits or blurry backgrounds, into the center of the image.
Artist: Jiang Bing-Fan
Through researching the shrimp fishing grounds within New Taipei City and analyzing the connection between space and the surroundings, Jiang hopes that replacing the functions or objects would lead to different architectures and thinking.
B5｜sublimate: Expressing intense emotions or energy conversion through making circles
Artist: Project OUKE
Project OUKE is a new type of restaurant drawing inspiration from art, design, and gastronomy. What sets it apart is the deliberate ambiguity it creates between what’s edible and what’s not. A collaboration among an artist, visual designer, and food designer, the team reimagines perceptions of food to embody experimental and futuristic elements. In this space, each dish is an unparalleled piece of art, bringing forth a collision and challenge between visual and gustatory senses, and invoking cognitive shifts during the culinary experience. The design ethos behind Project OUKE is to question and challenge conventional understandings of food, fostering innovation in cuisine while highlighting its artistic and technological facets. For those adventurous souls keen on delving into the myriad possibilities of food and the extremes of visual and gustatory experiences, Project OUKE is an experience not to be missed.
B6｜system: A set of connecting incidents, objects, or equipment that operate together to become a circle
Artist: Yi-Chang Lai
The forest is a keeper of the remnants of human civilization.
In New Taipei City, a landscape adorned with undulating hills, Vernicia fordii, Acacia confusa, Sapium sebiferum, bamboo, and Japanese black pine, the familiar wilderness is in fact composed of non-native species. These species were introduced to fulfill the evolving demands of human societies, culminating in the establishment of diverse woodlands reflective of different periods.
As time marches on and technology advances, many plants have gradually lost their function of serving human beings, slowly naturalizing after being released and abandoned in the wild, integrating with the forests and wilderness and becoming a memory and history of human’s past, its life cycle preserving civilization within the lush wild forests.
This project collects plants that were introduced for specific needs but have become naturalized species in the local forests and their hidden stories. The project also invites local craft industries to combine stories with craft, becoming a collection room for civilization and nature.
B7｜instrument: The circle as a method of realizing or causing an incident
Artist: Sonia Calico
Inspired by the local pottery art of Yingge, the project searches for materials from abandoned, shattered pottery and gives them new life by making them into musical instruments. The DIY ceramic percussion instrument is then incorporated into the artist’s specialty of electronic music to explore new elements for composing music.
B8｜movement: The Movements of Circles
Artist: Ya-Wei Chang
Influenced by the murals in Grotte de Lascaux mentioned in French philosopher Georges Bataille’s Prehistoric Painting: Lascaux or the Birth of Art, the artist hopes to construct a cave of awareness collection, a haven that safeguards the creative yields of self-awareness.
Artist Ya-Wei Chang is interested in the connection between the psychology of fairy tales and bodily artworks. Chang hopes to gather individuals willing to be interviewed by the artist on fairy tale psychology throughout the residency (4-5 individuals within one month), regardless of gender and background. In the interviews, the artist inquires and documents the interviewees’ imageries of fairy tales to develop corresponding actions for their stories and invites interviewees to draw the fairy tales in their imaginations, which are preserved as materials for future choreography works.
Artist: Yun-Cheng Chen
We are the Check-In Legislative Yuan of the Milky Way, here to prevent the world from being damaged and to guard the peace of NTCAM.
Artist: the MEDIAN
The inner ○, outer ○, solid ○, hollow ○, wavy ○, silver ○… making ○, sitting ○, on top of ○, within ○, submerging into the realm of the art ○, the final comprehension of ○.
Five Collaborative Spaces
Space C1: The Center (information center)
Centering around architectural mediums and expanding outward to include different aspects and possibilities.
Space C2: Central Angle
An angle formed by materials from the artists and industries of New Taipei City.
Space C3: Radius
A route formed by co-creating and connecting with the public, with the museum at the center.
Space C4: Remarkable
Stand or sit, eat and drink.
Space C5: Circumference:
Trajectories drawn using Karina Smigla-Bobinski's interactive spheres.
Karina Smigla-Bobinski is a female German artist whose works are rooted in digital biotech concepts and created amid science, intuition, expression, and cognition. The artist’s oeuvre encompasses kinetic sculptures, interactive installations, art interventions, and multimedia theatre performances. With a global footprint, the artist’s creations have been exhibited in art galleries, museums, and art festivals across 49 countries and five continents, including notable venues and events like ZERO1 in the United States, FILE Festival in Brazil, FACT Liverpool in the United Kingdom, and the Venice Biennale.
One of Karina Smigla-Bobinski’s most famous works is an interactive analog installation ADA, which features a transparent, Helium-filled balloon covered with an outer layer of 300 charcoal pens floating in a white space. Visitors interact with the work by pushing, moving the work, and playing and dancing with the piece.
ADA is described as a “post-digital interactive drawing machine” and resembles a mixture of radial molecules. As the number of visitors increases, the dots and lines created by biotechnology become increasingly complex, leaving traces that even the artist and visitors fail to interpret. The naming of ADA pays tribute to the female British mathematician Ada Lovelace, the first person to propose that computers could achieve more than calculation and the first computer programmer in history.
Remarks: ADA is closed for maintenance on every Monday from 15:00-17:00
C2 Central Angle_Library of Materials
C3 Radius_The Public Making Circles
C5 Circumference_ADA, Karina Smigla-Bobinski
C5 Circumference_ADA, Karina Smigla-Bobinski
Overall visual coordination and design: Project On Museum
Overall space design and construction coordination: Tiro Designers (Lu Wu-Lung), WOOHOO (Nish Ho), Bulrush Design (Xie Xin-Mei, Lin Xiao-Qian)
Spatial concept illustration: Suen-Yi Wong (catman)
Structural safety consultant: Wu Zi-Yao
Circumference exhibition space collaborating partner: Zhu-Ye Creative Engineering Co., Ltd.
Landscape design: Studio Haojhe Liao
