Catastrophism

災變論｜Catastrophism

Supported by Hong Foundation

Two-channel video installation, 12'54'', 2025

This work is a cooperation with the long-time collaborator, scriptwriter Chen Wan-Yin.

 A group of children twist their bodies and crawl slowly, encircling another child. They clutch pebbles and stones, tossing them as if to bury him. In the process, the buried child recounts a story about the evolution of Homo erectus.

“Catastrophism” is a term used in evolutionary biology to describe pivotal moments when species evolution is reshaped by disaster. In the context of recent ecological shifts and a fractured global order, catastrophism can no longer be separated from technological systems. This work was inspired by a long-term collaboration with a 3D scanning team, whose tasks include scanning the bodies of victims at disaster sites and digitally reconstructing their identities. Through this collaboration, the artist seeks to explore the origins and formation of human rationality within the landscape of contemporary catastrophe.

The story of Homo erectus evolution in the video is adapted from Thomas Moynihan’s book Spinal Catastrophism: A Secret History.

 

(Photo by Sean Wang, courtesy of Hong Foundation)

In the Debris

在廢墟｜In the Debris
Supported by Hong Foundation

Multi-channel video installation, 2025

This work is a cooperation with the long-time collaborator, scriptwriter Chen Wan-Yin.

The inspiration for this work comes from the artist’s long-term collaboration with a scanning team whose tasks include scanning disaster sites and the bodies of victims, assisting in identity reconstruction through digital means. For this exhibition, the artist again collaborated with the team, using 3D scanning and motion capture technology to create several different scenes: children trying to dig another child out from under the rubble, as he repeatedly recites lines from the moment of his death, trapped in a pit of earth and stone; children performing various illusions—hypnosis, levitation, Russian roulette, and fabric-based magic tricks; a group of physically impaired children crawling, contorting their bodies, and tossing sand and stones, pushing the limits of their physicality.

In the exhibition, the models of hands and feet were scanned and cast from the body of a pair of conjoined twin brothers. Before their separation surgery, they shared one leg—both could control it, as if playing tug-of-war. However, during the operation, the leg could not be assigned to either of them and was ultimately discarded. That abandoned leg became a strange vessel of consciousness—a remnant proving that two minds once coexisted within a single body, sharing sensation and will.

The narration in the video is recited from Lo Yi-Chin’s (駱以軍) novel Kuang Chaoren (匡超人), which tells a story of an infinite loop within a single moment of death.

 (Photo by Sean Wang, courtesy of Hong Foundation)

City Strays

街頭狗｜City Strays

Supported by Han Nefkens Foundation
Video Installation, 08'25'', 2024

The dogs belong to Kosovo, encountered during the artist’s ventures through the streets of Pristina. At night, the artist merged with the packs of dogs, following their movements until they dispersed and disappeared. Locals shared the story of these dogs: during the late 1990s, as Serbian troops clashed with Albanian guerrillas, domestic dogs were abandoned on the streets of the battlefield. Since then, Pristina has become a scene of roaming dog packs, with occasional confrontations between humans and dogs.

Demarcation

劃線｜Demarcation

Supported by Han Nefkens Foundation

Video Installation, 17'12'', 2024

The horses hail from Mongolia. The artist captured images along a boundary within Mongolia, documenting the contrasting landscapes on each side. This boundary separates the realms of the Przewalski's horse and the domestic horse: on one side, a 506 square-kilometer sanctuary protects wild horses, untouched and unaided by human hands; on the other side, horses live entirely different lives under human care, serving as children's companions, workers, modes of transport, sustenance, and sources of amusement. The Przewalski's horses in Mongolia appear more liberated than their domesticated counterparts, yet they live in a Truman Show-like existence, observed from the start and constantly monitored by zoologists (and tourists).

Zoo Hypothesis: lecture performance

動物園假說：講述表演｜Zoo Hypothesis: lecture performance
Co-production by Theater der Welt & Taipei Performing Arts Center
lecture performance

2023

　

Dramaturgy: Betty Yi-Chun Chen

Speakers: Hsu Che-Yu | Chen Wan-Yin

Puppeteer: Kuo Chien-Fu

　

Zoo Hypothesis

動物園假說｜Zoo Hypothesis

Commissioned by Theater der Welt, with support from the Han Nefkens Foundation

Video Installation

31'25''

2023

This work is a cooperation with the long-time collaborator, scriptwriter Chen Wan-Yin.

The work is about a scriptwriter and a performer having a conversation in an animal taxidermist’s studio. They attempt to come up with a performance, exploring the relationship between ‘gestures’ and ‘horrors’.

The conversation revolves around two events from Japanese Taiwan during World War II. One is the memorial ceremony held in a zoo to commemorate animals that died during military operations. Animals such as elephants and orangutans were trained to kneel as a symbolic posture for mourning. The other reference is the 1944 massive animal execution in the Taiwanese zoo, intended to prevent civilian casualties caused by animals after the US military had bombed the cities. The unfortunate animals were then turned into taxidermy to preserve their movements and postures.

In addition to the dialogue between the two characters, both the Taiwanese Zoo and the zoo's taxidermy studio were architecturally reconstructed using 3D scanning technology.

Blank Photograph

空白相片｜Blank Photograph

Produced by Le Fresnoy - Studio national des arts contemporains

Video Installation

20'29''
2022

This work is a cooperation with the long-time collaborator, scriptwriter Chen Wan-Yin.

A bomb maker revisits the seashore where he practiced bomb-making and goes back to his home where he speaks a story about a suicidal scene. 

In 2003, Yang Ru-Men placed bombs on the city of Taipei more than ten times. Yet, none of the bombs was ignited. Yang’s action was later regarded as a struggle for farmers in the same vein of anti-neoliberalism and his sentence was mitigated. A few years after he was released from jail, his brother committed suicide at home.

In this work, Hsu Che-Yu invites Yang Ru-Men to perform at two sites: the seashore and his house. At the seashore where he practiced bomb-making, he reenacts an operation and discusses the self-sacrifice resonance of the Japanese Red Army. In his house, he recalls a memory of a suicidal family member. The artist cooperated with a 3D scanning team—their job is to provide forensic scanning service at crime scenes—to make a digital double of Yang Ru-Men. Hsu made a digital scan of the architectural structure of Yang Ru-Men’s house. With these digital models, the artist reconstructs the bomb maker’s personal memories virtually.

　

Gray Room

白屋｜Gray Room

Co-production by Han Nefkens Foundation & Kaohsiung Film Archive VR FILM LAB
VR360 Installation
16'06''

2022

This work is a cooperation with the long-time collaborator, scriptwriter Chen Wan-Yin.

Inspired by the artist's ailment and medical examination, he contemplates the construction of intimate memories, from bodily and spatial perceptions to neuroscientific imagination in this VR project.

It begins with a memory from Hsu Che-Yu's childhood: waking up in the middle of his sleep and finding himself sitting outside the house. It felt like everything became displaced. Recent two years, Hsu has been bothered by unusual headaches. After medical examinations, he was diagnosed with Diplopia, the so-called double vision, which was induced by the nervous system. In modern medical research, almost all perceptions and emotions can be measured in Neuroscience; they are material components of the neuro system. Without any metaphysical understanding of emotion and spirit, the concept of the soul is thus challenged.

The Making of Crime Scenes

事件現場製造｜The Making of Crime Scenes

Produced by Le Fresnoy - Studio national des arts contemporains

Video

21'56''

2021

This work is a cooperation with the long-time collaborator, scriptwriter Chen Wan-Yin.

Starting from a gunman involved in a murder case, The Making of Crime Scenes seeks to reflect the collective unconscious within society and politics through the gunman's multiple peculiar roles—a filmmaker, a killer, a gangster, and a patriot.

In 1984, when Taiwan was still under Martial Law, a Taiwanese American writer Henry Liu was shot to death in his own house in the US by a Taiwanese assassin. Afterward, due to the intervention and investigation of the US government authorities, this case was eventually confirmed to be a political murder jointly committed by the Military Intelligence Bureau and the biggest mafia United Bamboo Gang in Taiwan, as the government paid the mafia to kill Liu. In the end, the Taiwanese government negotiated with Liu’s family, who signed a non-disclosure agreement, part of which prohibited the revelation of the case in the form of cinema.

The protagonist of this work, Wu Dun, is the assassin who fired the shot at the time. After the case was exposed, the Taiwanese authorities were pressured by the US, and Wu was thus sentenced to life imprisonment. However, he was given amnesty and discharged from prison after six years. After he got out of prison, Wu remained an important member of the United Bamboo Gang, and he established a film company as a producer with the support of his mafia influence, making several “wuxia films” – refers to specific traditional Chinese swordplay films. In the genre of “wuxia film,” the story of the conflicts between a government and local gangsters has often been the main theme, along with a strongly nationalistic ideology. In this work, artist Hsu Che-Yu revisited the film studio that was once used by Wu and is now deserted to recompose the fragments of the political assassination and the scenes of wuxia films, and he cooperated with a 3D scanning team—their job is to provide forensic scanning service at crime scenes—to make a digital double of Wu Dun.

（中文介紹點選此處）

Rabbit 314

編號314｜Rabbit 314

Video Installation
7'17''
2020

This work is a cooperation with the long-time collaborator, scriptwriter Chen Wan-Yin. 

This work was created in collaboration with the Council of Agriculture’s National Institute for Animal Health, an institution established during the Japanese colonial period. The artist reflects on the relationship between the materiality of animal bodies and their souls. The death of a laboratory rabbit initiates this project. A glove puppetry performer, with the laboratory rabbit's dead body in hand, reenacts the movements—imagined by humans—of rabbits.

（中文介紹點選此處）