Water God Bot

Hui-Ying Tsai Residency Exhibition
　　
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▍Exhibition Text

An interactive sound installation using the detectability of electricity, body, water, and salt to cascade existence. It explores the constant process of confirmation and reinforcement of spiritual sublimation, machinery and flesh, material and spirit.  

The space comes to life when the viewers touch the water in the device that triggers sounds to compose a fluid dimension; A dimension that transcends time and space.  

The usage of medical implants and medicines to repair the flesh is to view the body as a machine. The boundary between robots and humans is fascinating. Are there souls? Is the world we perceived the whole? Do lifeless objects possess powers and thoughts? Can reality be created through rituals, contacts, and imaginations? The work intends to interpret and explore the oldest known belief system: Animism in the contemporary artistic approach.

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▍ About Artist
Hui-Ying Tsai (Taiwan)

Hui-Ying Tsai is a Taiwanese/American interdisciplinary artist based in Brooklyn, New York. She received the BFA from National Kaohsiung Normal University and the MFA New Genres from San Francisco Art Institute. Tsai established Project Habitation in 2016 to focus on community projects that highlight sustainability and environmental issues. She was a fellow of the MacDowell Colony, Joan Mitchell Foundation, MASS MoCA, Anderson Ranch Arts Center, The Vermont Studio Center, The Millay Colony for the Arts, Cheng Long Wetlands International Art Project, Red Bull Arts Detroit, Antenna: Spillways Residency, and Taitung Railway Art Village Residency. Her works were collected by National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts.

Since 2018, Hui-Ying Tsai formed a new media art collective based in Brooklyn with Jonathan Grover. Grover has worked internationally as a digital artist, sound production artist, and instructor. He has been noted by The San Francisco Chronicle, and received media attention from NBC. He is the founder of an online coding school, Code Pajamas, and had extensive experience in interactive software and hardware.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the entry restriction, Grover is unable to come; only Tsai is now doing the residency project here at Pier-2 Art Center.

Circuladium received the Excellent Award of 2018 Austronesian International Arts Award by Taitung Museum of Art in Taiwan which acquired their first piece as a team. Their piece “Turquoise Wind” is on long-term display in Taitung County Cultural Affairs Bureau Library in Taiwan.