Taishin Bank Foundation for Arts and Culture

Comments on the Finalist

An immensely explosive effect is applied upon the artist's body. For the audience, the explosion looks so irrelevant like watching an entertainment show without excitement. “A Warning” is adopted from advertising language and its rationale, which earnestly combines the sensational texture in media as such horror films, music videos, and TV commercials. With bright, sharp images, the work provides an alternative interpretation for the relation between the media and the message. Hui-yi SU transforms the details in the television shows through a series of actions of imitation and re-construction, which allows the “high” spirit to detonate the visual tension and hollow explosion. The artist enjoys the approach of television language and its rationale and, meanwhile, unmasks the contradictory nature of the media of modern times.  (Committee member/ Ching-wen CHANG)

The mass media is supposed to be the medium to reflect the truth. However, its contents are gradually replaced by sensational film images. Even the TV news is influenced by entertainment movies. The artist is good at cross-discipline arts and dancing, and knows well about the operation of show business from his work for MTV. For this time, he plays the victim of a violent incident. The MTV-like tone of the work intently makes its authenticity questionable and makes the arts into an advertising film with attractive images but lack of thread of thoughts. Does the victim scene become a commodity? Or an artistic commodity? The artist says that he attempts to use fashion against itself. At this point, he may have more possibilities to explore. (Committee member/ Hai-ming HUANG)

Artwork Introduction

Su Hui-yu's “The Fabled Shoots” solo exhibition took place at VT Salon in September 2007. In the graphic video installation Su asks what is terrorism. Is it a political construct? Terrorism, fear and violence impact our lives so intensely that it inspired Su to create “The Fabled Shoots.” Raised, like most any other child, on a hefty diet of gun battles and fights in the movies, on television and on the playground, Su questions this media onslaught of murder and mayhem.

Su first began the project with ideas of movie gun battles, but as actual incidents of terrorism became daily news fodder, he broadened up his approach. The typical movie shoot-out contains certain predictable elements and rhetorical devices. In spite of their lack of originality, these filmed actions of violence are easily produced and consumed, becoming repeatedly banal and clichéd. In Su's version, the body never dies at the end of the gun. In the work, Su is both victim and terrorist. He terrorizes and shoots himself in a continuous tortuous manner. However, the artifice of the video is obvious and allows the viewer to realize that this is all make-believe.

Su's concept began in 2005, when he was exploring the highly entertaining value of Hollywood's shootouts, but it wasn't fully formed until 2007 when, suddenly, with no warning, the shocking Virginia Tech massacre happened. The perpetrator had also filmed a threatening video which he sent to a television station. Su then realized that the prevalent video imagery is also part and parcel of the terrorist acts it documents, so then shooting, as used in the title, really does have a double meaning.

About the Artist

Artist Su Hui-yu has been exhibiting his video art in group and individual exhibitions in cities such as Taipei, Berlin, Madrid and Paris since 1998. His first solo show was a multi-media performance titled “Happy Space” that took place at Taipei's Huashan Arts District in 2002.

One of his ongoing themes is how television and movies mediate our culture and often desensitize us, as in the case of violence. Su also examines the media's effect, not only on violence, but on body language, society and how it affects our interactions with each other in the social space.