The Empty Orchestra (ongoing)
“The Empty Orchestra” brings audiences into the Taiwanese cultural phenomenon of prayer buses. Utilized by the working class, these buses allow the elderly to sing karaoke while taking cheap transportation to temples. Looking back at being on these rides with my grandfather, I began to see them as fascinating cultural objects and scenes of liminal spiritual performance. I was also drawn to parallels between the transcendence offered by songs and prayers, and how karaoke offers singers ways of meditating on difficult subjects from a distance, whether it was death, rebirth or the Japanese colonial past through imagined nostalgia, mirroring how spirit mediums might embody a soul from another time.
When considering these buses as a class-determined form of escapist fantasy, I came across Victorian panoramas and other simulated journeys. I’m particularly interested in moments when our minds and bodies are out of sync, as with dreams, mental loops, and other experiences of ephemerality and in-betweenness. I am curious about how storytelling, singing, and prayers engage with the historical spaces of illusion, what systems of perception are renewed in the development of simulation and synthetic realism, and how artists, like magicians, can conjure images that challenge the lingering ghosts of imperialism, using imagination to subvert their power.
When considering these buses as a class-determined form of escapist fantasy, I came across Victorian panoramas and other simulated journeys. I’m particularly interested in moments when our minds and bodies are out of sync, as with dreams, mental loops, and other experiences of ephemerality and in-betweenness. I am curious about how storytelling, singing, and prayers engage with the historical spaces of illusion, what systems of perception are renewed in the development of simulation and synthetic realism, and how artists, like magicians, can conjure images that challenge the lingering ghosts of imperialism, using imagination to subvert their power.
Performer: Maria Fang, Kao Cheng Kai
Music: Nathan Singhapok
Music: Nathan Singhapok
4-channel video, smashed automobile mirror, disco ball motor, wax, bus pole, imitation gold leaf, bus carpet, tail light, fabric.
Clay, hologram display, silicone rubber, bus pole, imitation gold leaf, bus carpet, bus interior light, disco ball.
Bus faux leather, seat belt, PLA, plexiglass, resin, amber emergency car light, LED.
Seat belt, bus pole, embroidery, ceramic, electrical wire, wax, tassel.
Bus seat, beads, tassel, wood, LED light, speaker.
