Nat Niu Portfolio (EN) by NIU Jun Qiang

Niu Chun Chiang

Through a common experience of viewing, I quote a kind of obscure and unusual emotion. To come along with the eternal gesture and to leave with escaping posture, the memory of this sentiment is derived from the flashy moment in daily life.

1. the scene of

When I Am Getting Old With You 2009

In memory, an image poem was written in this way: The time is in an afternoon heated by the sun or the long night diluted by moonlight, the place lies in the private environment of a personal life experience or any unspecific strange open space, the character is the portrait of a young artist who is good at creating lyrical images and whose virtual, feminine face is attached by private emotion before the camera. Through a narrative of voice-over, a visual effect to its minimal fashion and a neutral rhythm for camera movement, it recounts a stream of image fragments time after time. The words employed is calm and free from specific referents despite it seems sentimental.

When I am with you The work with a sensational title “When I am getting older with you” depicts the immediacy in high-tech media and how a person is situated under such media; it encompasses a holistic perception of time to which can’t be specifically referred. The strategy is to “reach the possibility of the communication between news report and its mimic works” and to “get behind the camera and the sweet smiles of the reporters so as to see how real events are dragged hopelessly and compromised with the edited news fragments outside the sweet smile of the reporters and camera.” Nat Niu respectively employs the title, the subtitle and the screens above to summon a bizzard experince which can not be fully illustrated in images(Niu had majored in new media art). Firstly, referring to the title, we can not tell the existence of someone who (it could be you and me) is aging with the time; neither could we recognize the reality of time-space coordinate from the uncannysmiling female news anchor before the camera by any hints of camera movements, focus and zoom-out. Except for the news titles, how can we tell the distance between the indescribable complexion and the audience? This sort of intangibility is what Niu has always been good at by summoning visual experiences from female bodies or any other feminine mediums which a rhetoric of entitlement would be added to intensify.

AND THE FINIS IS… On the femininity, Mystery, Unknown Faces in Nat Niu’s Works

Previously published in

Artist Magazine volume 423, 08, 2010

Author

Wen-chi Cheng

Intermission: Ten Minutes Left The absence of the object orthe “time” is what appeals to me over time and time again in Niu’s works. This secluded trace was revealed from“Ten Minutes Left”where the character (a family member of artist) in the video was staring at the camera and missing the disturbance of the overlapping noise behind the disappearing speeches and gazes in “When I am getting older with you.” The former is an ambiguous reference to the camera and the family member for they can never stay closer: As any individual who are hindered by the intangible obstacle between him and the environment. The latter refers to a state of alienation specifically created by the artist through the screen of electronic medium; it is intended to deliver a commonly seen audience phenomenon in modern time: As a all-knowing dyslexia and out-of-focus disorder in reading media. The moment when the audiences exist but are not really present makes media a dispensable medium. Yet, who is the audience in there? The answer obviously is not the camera holder in “Ten Minutes Left”. Although, a position for the dialogue is implied by the artist, we are urged to pop up the question that when the female reporter is waiting for the end or for the suspension of time it will become, to where will it supposed to be? Or is it as indicated in the voice-over that “the shrinking of Y chromosome will lead the male become extinct after 5,000,000 years”

Can’t be With You Time and space are constituents of a mutually complementary system; that is, only through specific space will time proceed to generate meanings (Imagine what is the difference between a eternal time of an everlasting universe and a blink of eyes) Thus, the time-indicated “you” in the title “When I am getting older with you” seems to correspond to the “you” in “Can’t be with you” in meanings. If this is not a dialectics of time and space proposed by the artist, how should we explain the coincidence of this reference in meanings? The time frames in “When I am getting older with you” and “Can’t be with you” are identical and complementary. “Can’t be with you is a four channel video installation in three projection screens and one liquid crystal display, “...a circuit video

2. 3. the scene of 10 Minutes Left digital Print 2009

loop in a synchronized live moment which reflects our immersed and inescapable absurdity towards the need for live images” Basically, this work is the re-installment of “When I am getting older with you”, the purpose is to create a set of circulated video loop; that is, to demonstrate a two-stage deduction about time and media. Among them, the work in ‘When I ...series Ⅲ’ which contains a single transverse video news narrative and go beyond those images is comprised by the five scenes (living room, room, meeting room, outside and inside the car) and seven shots of previous works; all of them have followed a singular line of narrative time. Be it the singular story line in ‘When I ...series Ⅲ’ or the real-time loop created by a four-channel video installment; both have facilitated a consciousness towards time and created a strange experience of synchronicity between the subject and the object by a seemingly detached voice-over. Just as the reporter has to become a target before camera, the perception of time has not only guided us towards an open infinity but also to a closed loop. Only by inquiring into a historical reading of finis, such an indescribable feeling can be conveyed and experienced.

And the finis is…….. Let’s go back to the aforementioned image poem, a feminine face in the beginning of the loop; it reminds us those famous female close-ups in film history. In comparison the noted faces in painting history—the Olympia gaze of Manet which Niu has summoned in “Ten Minutes” and “Lively”—with the gazes in last shots of “Can’t be with you” and “When I am getting older with you”, we are inevitably reminded the last shot of Louis Malle’s Damage in which, after witnessing the death of his son by falling off a building, the father alone in a shabby room is staring at the enlarged photo with the blurred face of the female lead(Juliette Binoche), a feminine face so mysterious, omnipresent that symbolizes the fate itself. Only through this association, we are slightly given the opportunity of taking a glance at Niu’s secret proposition by feminine faces: On unknowing but eternal fate which is considered a secret and omnipresent consciousness of time, and, through the gaze of that mysterious face to the end of thefinis….”Is fate predictable?” the artist negated the question during the interview. Perhaps, the longing will remain even after the coming of the finis. The seemingly clear but increasingly vague face of a woman exists in the approaching but incomprehensible shot.

4. the scene of When I Am Getting Old With You the short film 2009

[1] Radio Taiwan International, “Cultural Taiwan” [2] In the last shot, the female reporter walks out of the frame...accompanied by a voice-over that “due to the decrease of Y chromosome, it could lead to the extinction of men in five million years”, a sense of absurdity about fate is thus revealed.(Niu) The word finis refers to the famous speech “Is the world coming to the finis or the future has just begun?”by Jürgen Moltmann who thinks that we do not know if the world is meeting its end, even it should be and we still never know what it is. [3] The Caption of “Can’t be with you”by Niu

[4] cf. [2] Jürgen Moltmann offered an opinion that the concept about the end of the world can be devided by the telos view or finis view of the history. If the history of the world has a purpose, a telos, then it will fulfillingly, gradually walk towards the direction of its destination. The work of Niu is also inspired by such a notion.

2009-10 When Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m Getting Older With You

Temporary Fleeting Loop

Vibrate

Gaze

Promise

Desolate

"When I Am Getting Old With You" series develops and expands a simplex news image into the horizontal narrative, extends the hidden events and fictitious emotions behind the lens. In addition to contrast the gap between the mass media and reality, also reflects our immediate live-news demanding and the inescapable circumstance, which we live in. In the script of this series, the female reporter transfers to the self-sense body from an information intermediary. Under the deliberately enlarged emotional elaborations, she stands out from the peripherally crowded news information, and the posture turns into the cause of the events. In those uncompleted and unbalanced gaze position; she is not only the epitome of the images in real life from the viewer, but also the projection of a part of emotion from the creator. Through a common experience of viewing, I quote a kind of obscure and unusual emotion. To come along with the eternal gesture and to leave with escaping posture, the memory of this sentiment is derived from the flashy moment in daily life.

When I Am Getting Old With You â&#x2026;Ą 120*130 cm / C-print(Lambda) / 2009

When I Am Getting Old With You â&#x2026;Ą 80*200 cm / C-print(Lambda) / 2009

When I Am Getting Old With You Ⅱ installation view, in solo exhibition “Can't be with you” Hong-Gah Museum,May 2010

When I Am Getting Old With You â&#x2026; 5 channels video installation 16:9 / sound / 3min~3min30/ 1440*1080iHDV 2009

When I Am Getting Old With You Ⅲ Short Film 05’12” / 16:9 / Color/ Sound 1440*1080i HDV Mpeg 4 2009

Can’t Be With You 4 channels video installation 1440*1080i HDV Mpeg 4 Installation view, in solo exhibition “Can't be with you” Hong-Gah Museum, May 2010

Canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t Be With You 4 channels video installation (LCD monitor , Projectors) 16:9 / 1440*1080i HDV Mpeg 4 / Loop Play 2010

Canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t Be With You 4 channels video installation ( Projectors) 4:3 / Sound / Loop Play 1440*1080i HDV Mpeg 4

2007-08 10 Minutes Left Lively

Unlike most of video installations , the aim of Lively is to present the flow of time within the spatial environment. Director selected ordinary scenes from daily life, and asked the protagonists to stand still in front of camera for10 minutes. After inputting the video into computer, the screen put on the scanner, so that when the footage was playing, it was also being scanned. The static images produced by the scanner when then put together to create a piece of animation.

The filming of this piece required the director to spend an extended period of time looking at (and being looked at by)family members. This mechanical , fixed gazing created an unusual sense of closeness. It was as through they had their existence only in the 10 minutes of filming.

10 Minutes Left Digital print 2007

10 Minutes Left Digital C-print(Lambda) 3 pieces, 75*135 cm Installation view, in the exhibition "the exhibition scene of "Rubricate-the exhibition of new media" Jun. 2007

Lively Single-Channel Video 04’20’’/ 16:9 / color /sound 1440*1080i HDV Mpeg 4

2010 The Banquet

Like a feature film, this project showed the heroine

elaborately put make-up, put on an evening gown and

wore shinning jewelry before setting out for a date. She

arrived to her destination, it was not a high-end restaurant,

but an outdoor night market, To the audience’s surprise,

her ceremonial dressing up was not for anyone, she

shopped alone and dinned alone. In the end of the video,

she went home and began washing away her make-up. The whole event brought the audience the feelings of

fragility and solitude common in human nature.

The Banquet Single-Channel Video 07’44’’/ 16:9 / color /sound 1440*1080i HDV Mpeg 4 2010

The Banquet Single-Channel Video Installation view, in the exhibition “Eattopia—2010 Taiwan International Video Art Exhibition” Hong-Gah Museum, Oct. 2010

2006 Bei-Bei

After all, thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll be one day,

I can take back something missed and effaced while I

grow up

The knowing of this kind,

would grow to be part of the body. And then,

They will augment with time ,

and incontrollable.

Bei-Bei the slide projector Installation 80 pieces/ Loop play 2006

Bei-Bei the slide projector Installation / 80 pieces/ Loop play Installation view, in the exhibition “Taiwan & Israel Young Artists Interchange Exhibition” KuanDu Museum, Mar. 2008

Bei-Bei the slide projector Installation/ 80 pieces/ Loop play Installation view, in the exhibition “Taiwan & Israel Young Artists Interchange Exhibition” KuanDu Museum, Mar. 2008

2008 Outland

October 2007 I had a surgery on my right eye due to retinal damages. Ever since the surgery I started having symptoms such as slower pupil reactions, discomforts around the eyes, blurred and doubled visions, sensitive to lights, worsen judgements on space and distance etc. In the following six months, with these symptoms continued to be unstable, I started to avoid clarity, the more I desire to see better the more obvious it becomes where the boundary to blurriness is drawn.

This series of work was taken at night in rural places in the city such as huge wastelands, football stadium by the park, racing tracks and under-constructed building sites. By making further adjustments and changes to the images, an even more unfamiliar scenery was created, it did not objectively and truthfully represent what I have seen and instead, my body senses (physical disabilities) were transformed on to these images, as if the machine was possessed by my body. In the softened beam of light, this silent and settled land is the body that cannot be entered.

What differentiates outland from border and frontier is that the location is pointed out more obviously with the word out, corresponding a relative relationship between the exterior and the interior of a central point. But the spectators cannot locate the coordinates in these images, the subject (camera, viewers) is in a position of being unable to see, it intends to wipe off the focus point in the image, however losing can also be perceived as concentrating on a focal point, a site that appears to be organic is now processed and made to be looked like and described as having computer graphic qualities. This contradictory situation is a reflection of a silent protest against particular contemporary circumstances and another way of escaping from my photographic works.

Outland Digital C-print(Lambda) 7 pieces, 87*130 cm Installation view, in the exhibition "Outstanding Art Prize of Art Department" KuanDu Museum, Mar. 2008

Outland Digital C-print(Lambda) 87*130 cm Installation view, in the exhibition "Outstanding Art Prize of Art Department" KuanDu Museum, Mar. 2008

2007 Distortion

The A4 papers have been at the same position all the time. I blow them and recorded. And then, at the same place, I project the image I recorded before.I re-created “readymade” by shooting and projecting it again, like “image-sculpture”. When papers blowing, you can’t recognize real and virtual The Soundart from Chung-Han ,YAO

The Scene of

Distortion

Audio-Visual installation 2007

失真 Distortion Audio-Visual installation Video projector, A4 papers Installation view, in the exhibition "Outstanding Art Prize of Art Department" KuanDu Museum, Mar. 2008

The Scene of

Distortion

Audio-Visual installation 2007

2008-09 Postcard Board man

The world had be filmed. --Guy-Ernst Debord

In the landscape of Taipei City, enveloped in this system of “spectacle,” nothing is more prominently visible than the “exotic residences” touted by the real estate industry. Their words and images are transplanted, superimposed, and referenced with suggestion and analogy, until they no longer signify their original meaning, and indeed express no meaning at all, but merely convey a certain mood, and transmit a residual sense of color, the scent of exotic lands. These advertisements not only echo the consumer culture of housing, but also manifest our imaginings regarding cities. They are built on a symbolic landscape, one that has been severed from this time and place, and has no necessary connection to it. These symbols are pieced together to form a vague outline, and are mutually interchangeable. Thus, they have transplanted exotic lands “locally,” but are incapable of signifying identification with “this place.” It may be a city that by sheer coincidence has the same name. Real estate advertisements make use of replication, mimicry and transplantation of media-generated events and pictures, endlessly multiplying due to the system of consumption, resulting in a blurred, ambiguous city landscape, and expressing a “flattening” of the city’s image. After every cross-section has been rendered twodimensional and enlarged, the discrepancy with reality becomes greater and greater. The people who work and live among these images constantly experience and corporealize the process of replication and amalgamation in the “society of the spectacle.”

POSTCARD-Dubai One piece-60*45 cm C-print(Lambda) 2007-08

POSTCARD-Monaco One piece-60*45 cm C-print(Lambda) 2007-08

POSTCARD-Taipei One piece-60*45 cm C-print(Lambda) 2007-08

POSTCARD One piece-60*45 cm, Series -600*45cm (10 Pieces) C-print(Lambda) 2007-08

POSTCARD Postcard frame installation (high:170cm) One piece-15*10cm (10 Pieces) Installation view, in the exhibition "The 10th Taoyuan Creation Award" Taoyuan Art Center, May. 2010

"Board Man" examines urban life. With the predominance of

consumerism, urban houses are becoming more like products and icons through ubiquitous advertisement campaigns. With westernized

principles and standards, housing projects are being injected with

foreign names, and have become fabricated sites that have taken on alter egos. Post-colonial living styles continue to dominate the structures of the streets and communities; consequently, Taiwan has

become the world, and the world is Taiwan. The situation created is a form of emotional appeal, but it possesses a quality that is a bit extreme with unfamiliar sentiments. The series of icons are currently being separated from the people that are living there, with

interchangeable profiles that are collaged together. Evidence is provided for its presence, but the actual “presence” has yet to occur, and perhaps never will. The destination names on the advertisement signs are completely alienated from people, location, and even the “housing” itself.

Board man-Yu Yoshizawa 4 channels video installation 04:30/16:9/ Color/ Sound/1440*1080i HDV Mpeg 4 2008

Board man-Amanda 4 channels video installation 04:30/16:9/ Color/ Sound/1440*1080i HDV Mpeg 4 2008

Board man-Elizabeth 4 channels video installation 04:30/16:9/ Color/ Sound/1440*1080i HDV Mpeg 4 2008

Board man-Thomas 4 channels video installation 04:30/16:9/ Color/ Sound/1440*1080i HDV Mpeg 4 2008

Board man 4 channels video installation 04:30/16:9/ Color/ Sound/1440*1080i HDV Mpeg 4 Installation view, in the exhibition "Outstanding Art Prize of Art Department" KuanDu Museum, Mar. 2008

NIU,CHUN-CHIANG Born in Taiwan, 1983. lives and works in Taipei 2000-2005 Interior Space Design, Shih Chien University 2006-2009 Graduate school of art and technology, Taipei National University of the Arts

Web natniu.net

Mail nat.niu@gmail.com

Blog natniu.blogspot.com niunat.blogspot.com

Award 2009 2009 2009 2008 2008 2008

Art Prize of S-An Cultural Foundation Taipei Arts Award Competition Outstanding Art Prize of Art Department Taipei Arts Award Competition Art Prize of S-An Cultural Foundation Outstanding Art Prize of Art Department

Solo Exhibition 2010 "Canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t be with you", Hum-Gah Museum , Taipei ,Taiwan 2009 "When I â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;m Getting older with you", Nan-Hai Gallery, Taipei, Taiwan

Art Residency '18th Street Art Center', Santa Monica,CA, U.S.A. Set.-Nov., 2011

Group Exhibition 2011 "AGUILAR DE CAMPOO Short Film Festival", Campoo,Spain "PIXILERATIONS [v.8]", New Media Fringe Festival, Providence, U.S.A "Post-Actitud : El Arte Contemporáneo de Jóvenes Artistas de Taiwan", Ex Teresa Arte, Mexico. "ARTchSO Video Festival 2011", Rennes, France. 2010 "PHOTO TAIPEI 2010", Sunworld Dynasty Hotel, Taipei ,Taipei "EX!T—2010 Experimental Media Art Festival in Taiwan", Taipei Contemporary Art Center, Taiwan "Eattopia—2010 Taiwan International Video Art Exhibition", Hong Gah Museum, Taipei, Taiwan "Festival du Cinema Asiatique de Tours" Tours, France. "The 10th Taoyuan Creation Award", Taoyuan Art Center ,Taiwan "Non-places__Architecture of pheromonal presence", Shih-Chien University, Taipei, Taiwan

2009 "Taipei Arts Award Competition", Taipei Fine Art Museum, Taipei , Taiwan "Futurity Bygones", The Art Network of Railway Warehouse , Chiayi , Taiwan "PHOTO TAIPEI 2009", The Westin Taipei ,Taipei , Taiwan "Light Position", National Taiwan Museum of fine Arts , Taichung , Taiwan "Taiwan & Israel Young Artists Interchange Exhibition#2", KaunDu Museum, Taipei , Taiwan "Going NoWHere !"Museum of contemporary art ,Taipei , Taiwan "The 10th Taipei Poetry Festival" , Taipei , Taiwan "2009 Outstanding Art Prize of Art Department Exhibition" , KaunDu Museum, Taipei , Taiwan

2008 "Taipei Arts Award Competition",Taipei Fine Art Museum, Taipei , Taiwan "Taiwan International Video Art Exhibition", Hong Gah Museum, Taipei, Taiwan "Asia Students and Young Artists Art Festival", Seoul, South Korea "Borderline / Mirrorlike-Taiwan & Israel Young Artists Interchange Exhibition" , Taipei, Taiwan "The 10th Taipei International Film Festival", Taipei, Taiwan "The 6th Taoyuan Creation Award", Taoyuan Art Center ,Taiwan "City on the Move Festival", Huashan Creative park ,Taipei, Taiwan

2007 "OPEN SPACE" , Kunsthochschule Kassel, Kassel, Germany "The 5th Taoyuan Creation Award" , Taoyuan Art Center ,Taiwan "The 2th Digital Art Festival Taipei" , Taipei , Taiwan "The 9th Taipei Poetry Festival" , Taipei , Taiwan

2006 "The 1st Digital Art Festival Taipei" , Taipei , Taiwan "Tiger Awards Competition for Short Film", the 35th International Film Festival Rotterdam, Holland