The Museum of Contemporary Art (MoCA) Taipei exhibited Signal Z from July 29-October 22 this year. The exhibition was organised by the researcher and art curator Chuang Wei-Tzu and C-LAB (Taiwan Contemporary Culture Lab) and explores contemporary life experiences, as imagined through the works of Gen Z artists from Taiwan. It presents works by Huang Yi-Chia and Wu Puwei, Fu Ning, Yang Lee, Yang Jie-Huai and Lu Po-Shun, Juan Poyuan, Hung Tzu-Ni, Hung Sheng-Hsiung, the collective 2ENTER, Chen Zi-Yin and Chuang Hsiang-Feng, Lin Cheng-Yu, Annie Lee, ExiStone Workgang, Li Cheng-Liang and Tsai Pou-Ching, Aerotropolis Stories Live In Dayuan and Liao Chao-Hao.

Signal Z draws from the Polish sociologist Zygmunt Bauman’s book Liquid Modernity (1999), wherein the author examines society’s shift away from “heavy” and “solid” articulations of modernity that sprung up from the proliferation of hardware, to a more “light” and “liquid” modernity that is based off of our expanding relationship with software. While solid modernity emerged during the industrial revolution and entailed stable social, economic and industrial institutions, liquid modernity has given way to individualism, uncertainty, and to use the neural processing researcher Leon D. Harmon’s term just as Bauman did, “phobophobia”, or the fear of abandonment in a volatile world. Bauman argues that this paradigm shift is responsible for major changes within every aspect of our lives and, through these, has rendered human identity increasingly transient and rootless. Signal Z may be taken as a representation of those changes and of the shift from modernism to postmodernism. The exhibition signals the current juncture that we stand at, wherein the digital revolution and globalism have catalysed our very reality, rendering it increasingly virtual and surreal.

The art exhibition explores the nature of liquidity within the context of Bauman’s work, and Chuang Wei-Tzu explains that the arrangement, presentation and viewing sequences of the works on display at Signal Z take into account their formal elements; the manifestations of various concepts by the artists; and the intended emotional impact upon audiences. Additionally, she has also attempted to establish a seamless connection among the themes that the practices on view engage with, keeping in mind the layout of MoCA Taipei’s Exhibition Hall 201, where the exhibition is on display.

Regarding the thematics of practices being shown at Signal Z, internet culture seems to be a recurring concern, with virtual communities coming to form a close focus for two particularly engaging works: Feel your information flow and body through this shell layer of the body (2023) by Juan Poyuan and DATA-VERSE (2023) by the artist collective 2ENTER.

Poyuan’s piece very clearly displays the influence that the Taiwanese artist has drawn from anime, which is now a hallmark of globalised media and a staple of the internet. The artist brings the world of online communities that use video games and, specifically, their “bishōjo” or “beautiful girl” characters, into real-space. DATA-VERSE sees 2ENTER projecting a constantly-shifting digital environment inspired by Taipei, that uses parameters drawn from both the virtual and the real to drive the rapid changes in the digital objects displayed. The virtual parameters entail a massive amount of network traffic that is parsed in real-time, while the real parameters include temperature and rainfall measurements, among others. This piece explores virtual communities in the internet age by letting the collective interests, concerns and preoccupations of Taiwan’s digital citizens drive the artwork.

Chuang Wei-Tzu asks, "Can you see, in the era of web3.0, what the alternation between the virtual and the real space looks like? Inhabiting this world where the internet and the physical world become entangled, how do our bodies and consciousness become fluid? Does online information, and do ideologically bound social groups on the internet, redefine our space and serve as a basis for coexistence?”

Does Signal Z typify an emergent sense of hybridity within the contemporary art practices of Taiwan? The curator admits that this is a bit challenging to answer but says: “I believe that, in terms of showcasing the creations of the new generation of Taiwanese artists, this exhibition indeed reflects the potential of young artists. Although many artists are putting effort into their works within different media and themes, unfortunately, due to the limitations of the exhibition's scale, we couldn't invite all of them to participate.” Chuang Wei-Tzu leaves us with the hope that Signal Z will pique interest into young Taiwanese practices, and will prompt audiences to grapple with the concepts they address.