Department of Cultural Affairs

Chimera Island 

Digital Art Festival Taipei  Breaking Boundaries From November 2

The 19th Digital Art Festival Taipei opens on November 2 at Taiwan Contemporary Culture Lab (C-LAB). The festival will showcase 21 interdisciplinary and hybrid creations, featuring work from four local and  twelve international artists. 

This year’s theme, Chimera Island, draws inspiration from the mythical chimera, a fire-breathing creature with the body of a lion, the head of a goat, and the tail of a serpent. This metaphor symbolizes the fusion of societal mechanisms and technologies, functioning like interconnected organs to form an idealized chimera. Visitors are invited to explore the intricate relationship between humans and technology through a diverse range of artistic expression.

The main exhibition takes place in the Communications Office, US-Aid Building, (now Art Space V) at C-LAB, a historic two-story venue where the curatorial concept unfolds along two key axes: “Organology,” which is the thematic backbone of the project, and “Speculation” and “Fiction”, which are used as tools to explore the intersection between technology and humanity, uncovering the intrinsic ethical and cultural dilemmas. 

To guide the audience into the narrative of Chimera Island, the curators have carefully designed the two floors of the US-Aid Building to have distinctly different atmospheres.

 The Enigmatic Black Box: Conversations Between Individual and Collective Consciousness

The first-floor exhibition has a black box ambiance, with themes of spirituality, mythology, and the interplay between individual and collective consciousness. 

In Hung Lu Chan’s Close Encounters with Inner Aliens, for example, the artist visualizes a transitional space, or alien forms, derived from the interaction between human collective consciousness and AI databases. The work invites viewers to confront their biases and appreciate the unfamiliar. 

In Mud & Flood – The Return of Nehalennia, the Dutch-based art collective Nonhuman Nonsense resurrects the ancient sea goddess Nehalennia, reimagining her with a 21st-century identity that blends science and mythology. This powerful work challenges us to reconsider our relationship with non-human life and natural forces in the context of climate change. 

British artist Charlotte Jarvis’s Organ of Radical Care: Una Matriz Colabora is a practical cross-disciplinary project that aims to cultivate a uterus from cells voluntarily provided by women and transgender and non-binary individuals. This work reflects the intersection of art and science, highlighting growing concerns around cross-disciplinary practices and the development of gender-related issues in the context of technological art.

 Interactive Experiences: Rethinking Technology’s Influence on Society

As you step into the second-floor exhibition area, the focus shifts even more toward interactive experiences that showcase how artists explore the relationship between the self and the digital world. This encourages the audience to consider unconventional perspectives and reflect on the effects of technological progress on human society. 

Inspired by the post-pandemic rise of video conferencing, An Eggy Video Meeting by artist Chuan Lun Wu reimagines the video-call experience from a non-human perspective. It explores how our observations of nature can feel like social awkwardness—much like the discomfort of unintentionally invading someone’s private space during a virtual meeting. 

Emerging art collective XTRUX presents Black Museum, a new work that blends 3D sculptures with a real-time interactive game powered by a game engine. The installation combines imagery and spatial design to investigate the dynamic between virtual and real-world perceptions.

 Cross-Disciplinary Innovation: Art, Technology, and Performance in Future Plaza

This year, the Digital Art Festival Taipei is introducing a new outdoor exhibition area. The interactive piece How (Not) to Get Hit by a Self-Driving Car is a collaboration between artists Tomo Kihara and Daniel Coppen. Set in Future Plaza, the piece features a challenge course designed to test artificial intelligence, inviting the audience to reach the finish line without being detected by AI. This interactive experience encourages the public to consider the potential risks of autonomous driving systems. The plaza is also collaborating with the NFT community “VolDAO” to showcase a range of generative artworks, offering the audience a dynamic and cross-disciplinary artistic experience.

Alongside the regular exhibition mentioned above, an outdoor stage has been set up in the spirit of “heterogeneous assembly” to align with the theme of Chimera Island. Two outdoor performances are scheduled at C-LAB Future Plaza: On November 2, from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m., three Taiwanese performers will showcase contemporary stunts and cross-disciplinary circus acts. Then, on November 15, from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m., Japanese duo Keijiro Takahashi and Yotaro Shuto will join several Taiwanese artists for a collaborative performance. With their cross-disciplinary and fantastical elements, these performances are intended to captivate a wide range of audiences, enriching both this year’s Digital Art Festival Taipei and future iterations.

▍Digital Art Festival Taipei – Chimera Island

Dates: November 2–November 17, closed Mondays

Opening hours: 12:00 p.m.–19:00 p.m.

Venue: Taiwan Contemporary Culture Lab

* On Saturday, November 2, the festival will remain open until midnight for Nuit Blanche.