Chen Chieh-jen:
Detoxify Illusion with Māyā (II)
Duration: 2 SEPTEMBER 12:00 AM
- 1 OCTOBER 11:59 AM (CST), 2023
The creation of illusion has always been a crucial technique of the empire, one used to manipulate human perception. But unlike Plato’s famous allegory of the cave, in which illusion and reality are regarded as absolute opposites, the empires of the present operate by way of a deliberate confusion of the two. They enact a qualitative transformation of certain progressive viewpoints, conjuring something that is harmless to the empire, but that corrodes true political economy, etc., while also luring the multitude into a labyrinth of pseudo-multiculturalism and self-consuming internal struggles.
Our perception of the world, our very ability to perceive it accurately, determines the futures we imagine. Whether we develop methods of breaking away from the empire’s pervasive control technology is not only a vital issue to politics in the broad sense of the word, it is also an essential part of each person’s mandate to construct their own subjectivity. It is the reason why art is necessary.
In the 69’30” video, Worn Away, the narrative begins with human society entering a new dark age. An unemployed person, unable to apply for credit, arrives at the “transit area” after opting for the empire’s alternative: the “Optimization of Biological Function Assistance Program.” While waiting to become a consumable for biological experiments, the person gradually realizes that other seemingly “useless” outcasts are rebuilding an alternative epistemology, now that all other alternatives have been exhausted.
About Chen Chieh-jen
Chen Chieh-jen was born in 1960 in Taoyuan, and currently lives and works in Taipei. While Chen’s primary media is video installation, in his production process, he has consistently experimented with community formation, integrating other participants with his film crew. This has added an activist quality directed at re-envisioning society in his creative process.
During Taiwan’s martial law period (1949–1987), a time marked by the Cold War, Chen employed extra-institutional underground exhibitions and guerrilla-style art actions to challenge dominant political mechanisms. After martial law ended, Chen gradually ceased making art, which lasted for eight years. Returning to art in 1996, Chen started collaborating with local residents, unemployed laborers, day workers, migrant workers, foreign spouses, unemployed youth and social activists. They occupied factories owned by capitalists and utilized discarded materials to build sets for his video productions. In order to visualize contemporary reality and a people’s history that has been obscured by neoliberalism, Chen embarked on a number of video projects in which he used strategies he calls “re-imagining, renarrating, re-writing and re-connecting.”
Starting in 2010, Chen began actively focusing on the fact that many people around the world have been reduced to working temporary jobs and lost sense of existence due to and lost sense of existence due to the corporatocracy’s pervasive control technology. Chen calls this universal situation “global imprisonment” or “at-home exile.” Based on these ruminations, Chen has considered how pervasive control technology can be qualitatively changed by transforming desire with alternative forms of desire and detoxifying illusion with māyā.
Chen Chieh-jen:
Detoxify Illusion with Māyā (II)
Duration: 2 SEPTEMBER 12:00 AM
- 1 OCTOBER 11:59 AM (CST), 2023
The creation of illusion has always been a crucial technique of the empire, one used to manipulate human perception. But unlike Plato’s famous allegory of the cave, in which illusion and reality are regarded as absolute opposites, the empires of the present operate by way of a deliberate confusion of the two. They enact a qualitative transformation of certain progressive viewpoints, conjuring something that is harmless to the empire, but that corrodes true political economy, etc., while also luring the multitude into a labyrinth of pseudo-multiculturalism and self-consuming internal struggles.
Our perception of the world, our very ability to perceive it accurately, determines the futures we imagine. Whether we develop methods of breaking away from the empire’s pervasive control technology is not only a vital issue to politics in the broad sense of the word, it is also an essential part of each person’s mandate to construct their own subjectivity. It is the reason why art is necessary.
In the 69’30” video, Worn Away, the narrative begins with human society entering a new dark age. An unemployed person, unable to apply for credit, arrives at the “transit area” after opting for the empire’s alternative: the “Optimization of Biological Function Assistance Program.” While waiting to become a consumable for biological experiments, the person gradually realizes that other seemingly “useless” outcasts are rebuilding an alternative epistemology, now that all other alternatives have been exhausted.
About Chen Chieh-jen
Chen Chieh-jen was born in 1960 in Taoyuan, and currently lives and works in Taipei. While Chen’s primary media is video installation, in his production process, he has consistently experimented with community formation, integrating other participants with his film crew. This has added an activist quality directed at re-envisioning society in his creative process.
During Taiwan’s martial law period (1949–1987), a time marked by the Cold War, Chen employed extra-institutional underground exhibitions and guerrilla-style art actions to challenge dominant political mechanisms. After martial law ended, Chen gradually ceased making art, which lasted for eight years. Returning to art in 1996, Chen started collaborating with local residents, unemployed laborers, day workers, migrant workers, foreign spouses, unemployed youth and social activists. They occupied factories owned by capitalists and utilized discarded materials to build sets for his video productions. In order to visualize contemporary reality and a people’s history that has been obscured by neoliberalism, Chen embarked on a number of video projects in which he used strategies he calls “re-imagining, renarrating, re-writing and re-connecting.”
Starting in 2010, Chen began actively focusing on the fact that many people around the world have been reduced to working temporary jobs and lost sense of existence due to and lost sense of existence due to the corporatocracy’s pervasive control technology. Chen calls this universal situation “global imprisonment” or “at-home exile.” Based on these ruminations, Chen has considered how pervasive control technology can be qualitatively changed by transforming desire with alternative forms of desire and detoxifying illusion with māyā.
