Caption｜Today, every type of electronic product comes with a manual that explains the basic information about the machine’s specifications and indicates the best way to operate it. For me as an artist, editing a manual is like directing a film. The difference between the two is that a film continues through software, whereas a manual is flipped through by hand to construct perception. Hence the process of editing the manual is pretty much like directing a “film on paper." Reading the manual, to me, rather than considering it a frame-by-frame animation editing process, is more like the process of the brain receiving instructions that will eventually lead to a certain answer. Unlike linear time, in the overview version of “Find the Button," the synchronicity of its one-time unfolding feature is applied to juxtapose different pages of text and images in a single frame like a “garden map," allowing viewers in various ways to explore and wander through the narrative. What is “Find the Button" looking for? I redeploy the instructions with simple syntax and images that look like logically telling the viewers everything about the button; however, it turns out to be a mechanical insight of “Super Working：Displacement Zero."
Caption｜The “Unboxing" moment is sacred. The “Seeing the Future" projector box is viewed as a six-sided platform to compose a narrative: On the top lid, a scene of the film “The Projector and Its Future" is printed. The front of the box has several button-sized squares on it, one of which happens to have a speck on it. On the backside of the box, specifications are imitations of factory-packaging, and a scene of the intelligent city from “The Projector and Its Future" is also embedded. On the left side, Mr. Mc. Launch is driving a cubic car, seemingly lost in an array of HDMI adapter information. On the right side, the communicational term “connectivity" serves as a metaphor for interconnections of different devices through various viewing activities. I inserted a scene from “The Projector and its Future" where Don Juan and the ostrich are watching a movie, and a gigantic USB stick drops in. When the image extends toward the right, a modern young man appears lying down on the bed, wiping his phone, and the projector projects a hottie for him… In ancient times, bards interpreted their times through gags. The explanatory information on the box is like annotations a bard holds toward our digital life in this consumer society. I mingle my life scenes into the cold hard data, pointing not only toward the machine itself but also to the real society as we know it.
孫知行 Sun,Chih-Hsing 