Blinking, glowing, flowing, beeping. Installation artist Shih Chieh Huang transforms spaces around the world with everyday objects – plastic bags, zip ties, fans, electronic toys – that he reconfigures into moving, luminescent systems that seem almost organic. Recently, he got the chance to investigate bioluminescence in true organic systems as the first ever artist-in-residence at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, Washington, DC, USA.
INMYX: What was it like working with marine biologists for three months?
Shih Chieh Huang: I've always been interested in nature shows ... there's different fish and organisms that I've seen on TV but never in real life. After the Venice Biennale, which was really hectic, the Smithsonian fellowship was a great time to get away from the arts and study these things ... hands-on, picking up the fish and touching it. They have this huge library of fish specimens. I would pick out maybe twenty jars of different fish and go into this room with a microscope. I'd just set up a little tripod with a camera, put it on Record and start looking at them.
INMYX: What elements in your work came out of this research?
Shih Chieh Huang: I'm not trying to mimic the fish. It's more like I'm trying to grasp the unusual and strange elements of the topic. When I was asking the scientists, for example, about one fish that has a flashing light organ under its eye, a lot of the answers felt like just interpretations, they just happen to work. It's never one hundred percent. And I was thinking, in my installations, people think different creatures are almost communicating with each other, but they're not quite sure. These unexplained things – ambiguous, unknown elements – they fascinate me.
Huang's next solo exhibition will be opening on February 27, 2009 at the Museum of Art - Rhode Island of Design (RSID). He'll also be exhibiting in Australia, Germany, Italy and elsewhere in the U.S. in 2009; check his website for more details.
Link:
www.messymix.com
