NETOPEN

In order to realize the new page of the TFAM’s future, and to respond to the invention and application of new technologies in art creation or institutional systems in the digital age, we hope to establish the "TFAM Net.Open Platform'' as a hub for the convergence and co-creation between art creators, computer engineers, scientists, arts administrators, and production teams.

Curators and artists are invited to push the boundaries of virtual mediums and online spaces beyond physical exhibitions. The platform also integrates online and offline activities to provide audiences with more diversified channels to get closer to the core of the artists' creations. Through the art projects on the platform, we hope to unite the community that focus on the development of cutting-edge technology and art, and hope that through the process of co-production and cooperation, we can foster the innovation of the museum in the aspects of knowledge, practice, technology, and system.

COMMONING

Please visit off-line project “Commoning” for more events in Taipei Fine arts museum

開放網絡計畫

為實現未來美術館的新頁,以及因應數位化時代各種新科技在藝術創作或機構系統上的發明與應用,我們希望透過建立「北美館開放網絡計畫平台」,讓它成為藝術創作者、工程師、科學家、藝術行政及製作等角色匯聚與共創的樞紐。邀請策展人及藝術家在實體展覽之外,挑戰虛擬載體上的可能性。也結合線上與線下的整合活動規劃,提供觀眾更多元的管道,接近藝術家的創作核心。經由在平台上發生的藝術計畫,凝聚關心前瞻科技與藝術發展的社群,更希望透過共製合作的過程,催生出美術館在知識、實踐、技術、系統等多面向的創新。

共域計畫

台北市立美術館於實體空間同步推出線下計畫「共域」

NETOPEN

In order to realize the new page of the TFAM’s future, and to respond to the invention and application of new technologies in art creation or institutional systems in the digital age, we hope to establish the "TFAM Net.Open Platform'' as a hub for the convergence and co-creation between art creators, computer engineers, scientists, arts administrators, and production teams.

Curators and artists are invited to push the boundaries of virtual mediums and online spaces beyond physical exhibitions. The platform also integrates online and offline activities to provide audiences with more diversified channels to get closer to the core of the artists' creations. Through the art projects on the platform, we hope to unite the community that focus on the development of cutting-edge technology and art, and hope that through the process of co-production and cooperation, we can foster the innovation of the museum in the aspects of knowledge, practice, technology, and system.

COMMONING

Please visit off-line project “Commoning” for more events in Taipei Fine arts museum

開放網絡計畫

為實現未來美術館的新頁,以及因應數位化時代各種新科技在藝術創作或機構系統上的發明與應用,我們希望透過建立「北美館開放網絡計畫平台」,讓它成為藝術創作者、工程師、科學家、藝術行政及製作等角色匯聚與共創的樞紐。邀請策展人及藝術家在實體展覽之外,挑戰虛擬載體上的可能性。也結合線上與線下的整合活動規劃,提供觀眾更多元的管道,接近藝術家的創作核心。經由在平台上發生的藝術計畫,凝聚關心前瞻科技與藝術發展的社群,更希望透過共製合作的過程,催生出美術館在知識、實踐、技術、系統等多面向的創新。

共域計畫

台北市立美術館於實體空間同步推出線下計畫「共域」。

The three digital commissions that launch TFAM Net.Open explore increasingly blurry boundaries between real and virtual life, fact and fiction today.

Contemporary life is undergoing a period of convolution. To call something ‘convoluted’ commonly indicates that it is overly complicated or confused. However, in the field of AI, convolution refers to a key technical feature of neural networks involved in image recognition, visual and text generation. As concerns mount regarding the social effects of machine-generated misinformation, and spam (produced by convolutional models), this suite of artworks highlights the topic of ambivalent signals of all kinds, and their productive power. A cascade of sense, nonsense, possibilities, and ‘latent’ realities are the order of the day. For the featured artists, heightened technological powers breed excitement, noise, plans, and confusion in equal measure. As their works appear to suggest, it can be difficult to discern if we inhabit the real world or a hallucination; whether we are living through a technological enlightenment, or a new dark age—full of myths and speculation. Is this a utopia, a dystopia, or everything all at once?

HSIEN-YU CHENG
todayisnotwhatyoulike
SIMON DENNY
Metaverse Landscapes: Patchwork
JON RAFMAN
S.S. Lacuna: Prologue

HSIEN-YU CHENG
todayisnotwhatyoulike

 

It is well known that access to a limitless variety of information online has undermined the modern news media’s authority. Consequently, agreement about what constitutes a public standard for objectivity or ‘facts’ has also weakened in society. Some commentators have labeled this point in history the ‘post-truth’ era. That individuals or groups should have their views influenced by opinions from outside the mainstream does not, itself, prove a decline in civic life. However, when such views are shaped by algorithmic ‘filter bubbles’—automated systems that feed users tailored content to support commercial or political ends—there is cause for concern. How does politics recover from the shock? As democratic thinkers consider such questions, Cheng Hsien-Yu offers a dramatic reflection on the mechanisms of psychological capture and spread of misinformation today. His new work uses custom software to explore how personalized information services combined with generative AI haunt questions of self-realization. At the same, the work demonstrates that information does not equal knowledge.

VISIT ART WORK

SIMON DENNY
Metaverse Landscapes: Patchwork

 

In science fiction, the metaverse is a hypothetical iteration of the Internet as a single, universal, and immersive virtual world, facilitated by the use of virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) headsets.

However, much like the ostensibly ‘global’ business landscape, the metaverse is, in fact, fractured—comprising a patchwork of territories and/or markets, operating according to systems with varying degrees of compatibility. Rather than speaking of a single metaverse one should, instead, speak of many. Against utopian ‘unity’, balkanization rules the day.

Is this the future, or a crooked kaleidoscope? Is it both, or something else? In lieu of an answer, Simon Denny offers us a meta-Metaverse. Amongst other things, his interactive artwork provides a map of adjacent projects—an interface that allows users to parse the lay of the land, and toggle between systems. While taking some inspiration from early game-world graphics, his piece combines both schematic and patchwork visuals, an approach that encapsulates the schizophrenia of metaverse landscapes; their depths and shallowness.

VISIT ART WORK

JON RAFMAN
S.S. LACUNA: PROLOGUE

 

Rafman’s TFAM Net. Open Commission is an interactive Web-based game, set inside a dystopian AI-generated universe. Utilizing a first-person adventure format, the work’s narrative gradually unfolds as users explore their virtual surroundings. Wandering through the hellscape of this late-stage civilization, confronting a host of absurd and crooked characters, the user becomes enmeshed in an illegal organ-harvesting operation and is recruited as a mercenary. S.S. Lacuna: Prologue’s open-world, point-and-click design invites players to discover the interconnected plotlines of the various characters they encounter. What are the implications when the resource fought over by the global elite is not oil or technology but human flesh? What does a human become when they are no longer restricted by mortality? As this nightmare unveils itself, the moral authority of the powerful gives way to the nebulous confusion of an immoral world.

S.S. Lacuna: Prologue is Jon Rafman’s first video game.

HSIEN-YU CHENG

Hsien-Yu Cheng (b. 1984, Kaohsiung, Taiwan) lives and works in Taipei. Graduated with a BFA from the Department of Theatrical Design & Technology, Taipei National University of Arts, Cheng holds a MFA from the Frank Mohr Institute at the Minerva Art Academy, Hanze University of Groningen, the Netherlands. As an artist and a software developer, Cheng’s working process expands into electronic installations, software and experimental bio-electronic devices, with an aim to explore the relationships amongst human behavior, emotion, software and machinery. In a humorous manner, he attempts to endow his works with vital signs and existential or empirical significance, to metaphorically embody his own experience and observation of the environment. He was selected as Young Talent 2011 in the Netherlands and won the first prize of Taipei Digital Art Award (2013), New Media Art of Kaohsiung Award (2017), Tung Chung Art Award (2019) and 19th Taishin Arts Award – Visual Arts Award (2021). His solo and group exhibitions were mostly exhibited in Taiwan, Asia, and Europe.

SIMON DENNY

Simon Denny (b. 1982 Auckland, New Zealand) lives and works in Berlin, Germany. He makes artworks that unpack stories about technology using a variety of media including painting, web-based media, installation, sculpture, print and video.

Recent solo exhibitions include Petzel Gallery, New York (2024); Dunkunsthalle, New York (2024); Kunstverein Hannover, Hannover (2023); the Gus Fisher Gallery (University of Auckland), Auckland (2022); Outernet, London (2022); Kunstverein in Hamburg, Hamburg (2021); K21– Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf (2020); the Museum of Old and New Art, Tasmania (2019); MOCA, Cleveland (2018); OCAT, Shenzhen (2017); Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2017); WIELS Contemporary Art Centre, Brussels (2016); Serpentine Galleries, London (2015); MoMA PS1, New York (2015); Portikus, Frankfurt (2014) MUMOK, Vienna (2013); Kunstverein Munich, Munich (2013).

Denny represented New Zealand at the 56th Venice Biennale in 2015.

He co-founded the artist mentoring program BPA//Berlin Program for Artists and has serves as a Professor of Time-Based Media at The Hochschule für bildende Künste Hamburg.

JON RAFMAN

Jon Rafman (b. 1981 Montreal) lives and works in California. Acclaimed for a multifaceted oeuvre that encompasses video, animation, photography, sculpture and installation, Rafman’s quasi-anthropological works—often incorporating internet-sourced images and narrative material—investigate digital technologies and the communities they create. Part archivist, Rafman explores the subcultures of the Internet, seeking to question the distinction between virtual and real. Many of Rafman’s most recent works use 3D animation. Examples include his Dream Journal 2016–2019, and the video essays Legendary Reality (2017), SHADOWBANNED (2018) and Disasters under the Sun (2019), which employ a visual language reminiscent of science fiction films. He has exhibited at Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; The Zabludowicz Collection, London; Contemporary Art Museum St Louis; The Saatchi Gallery, London; New Museum, NY; Palais de Tokyo, Paris; Schinkel Pavillon, Berlin; Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Tel Aviv; and Musée d’art Contemporain de Montréal, Montreal. Significant group shows include Manifesta 11, Zurich; 9th Berlin Biennale, Berlin; Speculations on Anonymous Materials at Fridericianum, Kassel; The Photographer’s Gallery, London; Nine Eyes as part of the Moscow Photobienniale, 2012; Screenshots at William Benton Museum of Art, Connecticut; and From Here On, Les Rencontres d’Arles: International Photography Festival, Arles.

Nadim Samman is Curator for the Digital Sphere at KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin. Nadim read Philosophy at University College London before receiving his PhD from the Courtauld Institute of Art. He was Co-Director of Import Projects e.V. in Berlin from 2012 to 2019 and, concurrently, Curator at Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary, Vienna (2013-2015). He curated the 4th Marrakech Biennale (with Carson Chan) in 2012, and the 5th Moscow Biennale for Young Art in 2015. He co-founded and co-curated the 1st Antarctic Biennale (2017) and the Antarctic Pavilion (Venice, 2015-). Widely published, in 2019 he was First Prize recipient of the International Award for Art Criticism (IAAC). His recent book Poetics of Encryption: Art and the Technocene is published by Hatje-Cantz, Berlin.

PUBLIC PROGRAM
1123 17:30-19:30

Dystopian Sci-fi Futures and Digital Corporeality

17:30-17:35 Introduction
17:35-17:55 Jon Rafman’s Artist Talk
17:55-18:15 Youngjoo Lee’s Artist Talk
18:15-19:30 Discussion and Q and A
Emerging technologies such as AI and biotech have enabled society to move toward a synthetic reality in which human and non-human actors collaborate and the dichotomy between digital and physical disappears. What, then, is the meaning and the role of corporeal bodies in the future world? This panel discussion invites two artists who explore this question through speculative scenarios and will be moderated by media scholar Dr. Dan Hassler-Forest. Young Joo Lee will share her artworks, Lizardians (2021) and Nova Earth Odyssey (2024). Through science fiction narratives about a biotech company that applies genetic engineering as the future of aesthetics product, along with a music video that remixes religions, current social issues and K-pop aesthetics from a female-centered perspective, both works critically reflect on the patriarchal social infrastructure and technology within a capitalistic system. Jon Rafman’s web-based interactive game, S.S. Lacuna: Prologue (2024), is set inside a dystopian AI-generated universe in which the player becomes enmeshed in an illegal organ-harvesting operation and is recruited as a mercenary. The game poses a thought-provoking question about the implications when the resource contested by the global elite is not oil or technology but human flesh.

*Online Exhibition “Convolutions” Curator:Nadim Samman
*Public Program Curator:Emily Hsiang-Yun Huang 黃祥昀
0821 19:00-21:30

AI Fake News Workshop X Artist Hsien-Yu Cheng’s Tour Guide

19:00-19:20 Artist Hsien-Yu Cheng’s todayisnotwhatyoulike Tour Guide
19:20-19:30 Intermission
19:30-20:10 Use AI to write fake news articles
20:10-20:40 Speech of ChatGPT operating mechanism
20:40-21:30 Quick question and answer game about real and fake news
Every day we turn on Line or other social media, click on notifications, and receive content farm texts and fake messages. But who is creating these messages and why? In fact, content farms are a well-developed international industry chain, and with the popularization of AI tools such as ChatGPT, content farms are facing a digital transformation, and fake messages have become a kind of “synthetic truth” between a human and a machine, which makes it easier to create disinformation and misinformation and allows for quicker standardization and scale-up. In this workshop, Tzu-Yi Yang, Wei-An Chen, and Hsiang-Yun Huang will share with participants the operation mechanism of ChatGPT and AI Collapse, introduce the tools for identifying fake news, and teach them how to use AI to write fake news articles in the style of a content farm. Through the reverse operation of writing fake news, we will experience the fake news labor industry and increase our immunity to fake news.
0725 19:30-21:30

Let’s Play:Convolutions, the first Online Exhibition at Taipei Fine Arts Museum

19:30-20:15 Let’s Play: Lucky (Chinese)
20:15-20:30 Simon Denny Tour Guide (Chinese and English)
20:30-21:30 Discussion and QA (Chinese and English)
We invited Lucky to be our livestreamer of a Let’s Play session for the Taipei Fine Arts Museum’s first online exhibition “Convolutions”, curated by Nadim Samman of the KW Institute for Contemporary Art in collaboration with TFAM. The exhibition invites artists to create new works inspired by contemporary technologies such as AI, NFT, metaverse and reflections on decentralized networks. Following the Let’s Play session, participating artist Simon Denny will present an online tour of his work “Metaverse Landscapes: Patchwork”, which combines modernist abstract paintings and colonial landscape elements with the economic systems of the metaverse and NFT. Through map-like scenes in the work, we will traverse a patchwork of territories in an attempt to pass the border, which could be interpreted as a critique of the notion that the metaverse is immersive, singular, and universal. Together, Lucky, Simon and the audience will discuss global capitalism in Web 3.0 and reimagine the concept of land ownership in the present and future worlds.

Convolutions

Curator
NADIM SAMMAN
Artist
HSIEN-YU CHENG
SIMON DENNY
JON RAFMAN
Web Design
SOMETIMES ALWAYS
Lead Designer: GABRIEL FINOTTI
Assistant Designer: WHODDAT
Public Program Curator
HSIANG-YUN HUANG
Project Manager
FRANKIE SU
Project Coordinators
CHIA-LING CHU
CHUAN-YU HUANG
Translators – English to Chinese
SHU-KUAN HSIEH
Web Production
8F-2 STUDIO

Artwork Production Team

todayisnotwhatyoulike
HSIEN-YU CHENG
Metaverse Landscapes: Patchwork
SIMON DENNY
Design & development:
JAKOB SITTER
STUDIO SIMON DENNY
S.S. Lacuna: Prologue
JON RAFMAN
Commissioned and Produced by Taipei Fine Arts Museum
©2024 Taipei Fine Arts Museum All rights reserved. Copyrights of the works are reserved for the artists; of texts for authors; of the photographs for the photographers.

Gaming System Requirements

Currently only available on PC
RTX 2060 or newer graphics card, i7 6700k or newer processor, 8gb or more of ram, 2gb of storage
 
This is a guide on playing SS Lacuna the demo.
This work is only playable on a PC! Mac version coming soon.
 

Installation Guide

DO NOT MOVE ANYTHING IN AND OUT OF THE WINDOWS FOLDER
1. Open the Windows folder and navigate to the file called “SS_Lacuna” (the executable, not the folder named the same thing.)
– 1a. You can either open the game by double clicking this file or by making a shortcut to this file and placing it wherever is convenient for you!
2. When you run the game the first time it will ask you if you’re sure you want to open this file. Click yes.
3. If it prompts you to install prerequisite software, google the software it asks for and download it then run the game again!
4. Enjoy the game 🙂
 
Note: This game’s total duration is approximately 1 hour.
     
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