Beyond the Machine -Wang Lien-Cheng Solo Exhibition

Exhibition Introduction

Vurator ∣ Chih-Yung Aaron CHIU

In contemporary society, adaptive forms of artificial intelligence (AI) are reshaping the very conditions of human existence, compelling a reconfiguration of subjectivity itself. Whereas the industrial era produced an “alienated” accommodation to machinery, the age of AI installs a far more intricate regime of collaboration and role migration: human behaviour is subsumed within algorithmic calculation, potentially homogenising perception and cognition and thus jeopardising the autonomy of the subject.
Beyond the Machine examines these shifts through artistic practice, focusing on AI’s impact upon human-machine relations, artistic production, and everyday life. The exhibition comprises five works. Dialectics of Survival employs speculative weaponry and computer-vision technologies to expose discriminatory logics in civic self-defense. Moral Machine critiques AI’s empiricist handling of ethical questions, revealing misreadings of abstraction and recursive data traps. Indexing Undercurrents, an extension of the Horizon – Sea series, interrogates search-engine image boundaries and their latent biases. Universal Deputy constructs an extreme scenario of three-dimensional surveillance and social-media virtuality to posit the possibility of AI citizenship. Finally, Mutable Sentry infiltrates the operational logic of each piece, foregrounding inter-AI collaboration and scopic regimes.
The exhibition contends that, within digitised life, calculation and prediction have coalesced into the singular engine of consumerism, eroding the human capacity for imaginative deviation and reducing subjects to machines of desire. Confronting this crisis requires the cultivation of heterogeneous modes of thought capable of resisting algorithmic capture.

Exhibition Introduction

Vurator ∣ Chih-Yung Aaron CHIU

In contemporary society, adaptive forms of artificial intelligence (AI) are reshaping the very conditions of human existence, compelling a reconfiguration of subjectivity itself. Whereas the industrial era produced an “alienated” accommodation to machinery, the age of AI installs a far more intricate regime of collaboration and role migration: human behaviour is subsumed within algorithmic calculation, potentially homogenising perception and cognition and thus jeopardising the autonomy of the subject.
Beyond the Machine examines these shifts through artistic practice, focusing on AI’s impact upon human-machine relations, artistic production, and everyday life. The exhibition comprises five works. Dialectics of Survival employs speculative weaponry and computer-vision technologies to expose discriminatory logics in civic self-defense. Moral Machine critiques AI’s empiricist handling of ethical questions, revealing misreadings of abstraction and recursive data traps. Indexing Undercurrents, an extension of the Horizon – Sea series, interrogates search-engine image boundaries and their latent biases. Universal Deputy constructs an extreme scenario of three-dimensional surveillance and social-media virtuality to posit the possibility of AI citizenship. Finally, Mutable Sentry infiltrates the operational logic of each piece, foregrounding inter-AI collaboration and scopic regimes.
The exhibition contends that, within digitised life, calculation and prediction have coalesced into the singular engine of consumerism, eroding the human capacity for imaginative deviation and reducing subjects to machines of desire. Confronting this crisis requires the cultivation of heterogeneous modes of thought capable of resisting algorithmic capture.

About the Artist

Wang Lien-Cheng

A media artist whose practice spans installation art and audiovisual performance. Recent installation works focus on issues surrounding machine-mediated society, while audiovisual performances often feature real-time generative visuals and sound created through programming. Currently serves as an Assistant Professor at the Taipei National University of the Arts. Recipient of numerous awards including the Grand Prize at the Taipei Art Awards, First Prize in Interactive Installation at the Taipei Digital Art Festival. First Prize in Digital Performance at the same festival, and the Sculpture Award at the Lumen Prize (UK). Their works have been featured at major international festivals such as Ars Electronica (Austria). MADATAC (Spain), GRAME National Center for Music Creation (France） and the New Technological Art Award (Belgium).

About the Artist

Wang Lien-Cheng

A media artist whose practice spans installation art and audiovisual performance. Recent installation works focus on issues surrounding machine-mediated society, while audiovisual performances often feature real-time generative visuals and sound created through programming. Currently serves as an Assistant Professor at the Taipei National University of the Arts. Recipient of numerous awards including the Grand Prize at the Taipei Art Awards, First Prize in Interactive Installation at the Taipei Digital Art Festival. First Prize in Digital Performance at the same festival, and the Sculpture Award at the Lumen Prize (UK). Their works have been featured at major international festivals such as Ars Electronica (Austria). MADATAC (Spain), GRAME National Center for Music Creation (France） and the New Technological Art Award (Belgium).

About the Curator

Chih-Yung Aaron CHIU

Professor Chih-Yung Aaron CHIU is currently the Associate Dean of the College of Arts, a professor and director of the Graduate Institute of Art and Technology, and Director of the Interdisciplinary Program of Technology and Art. He has been honored with the NTHU-Ching Jing Distinguished Talent Chair and NTHU-Delta Distinguished Talent. He is also a curator and art critic, specializing in digital aesthetics, science and technology studies, art criticism, and curatorial practice. Prof. CHIU’s research articles titled “On the Embodied Aesthetics of Digital Arts” (2007) and “Inter/Face: A Reconsideration of the Myth of Transparency” (2008) have been nominated by the Digital Art Criticism Awards Taipei. He also receives visiting scholar status at the University of Tokyo for two consecutive years (2020-2021), as well as a visiting scholar fellowship at Kansai University in 2023. Prof. CHIU has curated several exhibitions and festivals, such as Right Where It Belongs (2024), Unordinary Pathway (2023), Specularity/ Reflexivity: Contemporary Image Arts after the 1980s (2022), Fictional Life: Hybridity, Transgenetics, and Innovation (2021), Post-Digital Anthropocene: 2019 International Techno-Art Exhibition (2019), Wonder of Fantasy: 2014 International Techno-Art Exhibition (2014), the 2015-16 Taiwan Digital Art Festival—Trend, the 7th and 8th Taipei Digital Art Festivals, etc. His books Significant Discourse and Local Practice: New Media Art in Taiwan’s Context (2012) and Taiwan Digital Performance and Techno-Theatre (2023) have grown to be the most influential works in Taiwan’s techno-art academic community.

About the Curator

Chih-Yung Aaron CHIU

Professor Chih-Yung Aaron CHIU is currently the Associate Dean of the College of Arts, a professor and director of the Graduate Institute of Art and Technology, and Director of the Interdisciplinary Program of Technology and Art. He has been honored with the NTHU-Ching Jing Distinguished Talent Chair and NTHU-Delta Distinguished Talent. He is also a curator and art critic, specializing in digital aesthetics, science and technology studies, art criticism, and curatorial practice. Prof. CHIU’s research articles titled “On the Embodied Aesthetics of Digital Arts” (2007) and “Inter/Face: A Reconsideration of the Myth of Transparency” (2008) have been nominated by the Digital Art Criticism Awards Taipei. He also receives visiting scholar status at the University of Tokyo for two consecutive years (2020-2021), as well as a visiting scholar fellowship at Kansai University in 2023. Prof. CHIU has curated several exhibitions and festivals, such as Right Where It Belongs (2024), Unordinary Pathway (2023), Specularity/ Reflexivity: Contemporary Image Arts after the 1980s (2022), Fictional Life: Hybridity, Transgenetics, and Innovation (2021), Post-Digital Anthropocene: 2019 International Techno-Art Exhibition (2019), Wonder of Fantasy: 2014 International Techno-Art Exhibition (2014), the 2015-16 Taiwan Digital Art Festival—Trend, the 7th and 8th Taipei Digital Art Festivals, etc. His books Significant Discourse and Local Practice: New Media Art in Taiwan’s Context (2012) and Taiwan Digital Performance and Techno-Theatre (2023) have grown to be the most influential works in Taiwan’s techno-art academic community.

About the Works

《Dialectics of Survival》

3D-printed components (PLA), electromagnetic pulse device, camera, aluminum extrusion, steel ball, motor, screen
Dimensions Variable
2025

Dialectics of Survival is an AI-driven installation using conveyor belts, screens, and weaponized everyday objects to create a precise, violent sensory theater. When approached, the AI assigns algorithmic survival codes and activates weapons, evoking a techno-poetics of violence.

The work explores contradictions in safety, control, and self-defense. As tools become weapons, the line between war and life shifts. It questions whether protection itself becomes a new form of discipline.

Using AI vision and classification, the piece exposes bias and misjudgment, revealing “safety” as a power construct. It asks: how can agency and resistance persist under algorithmic violence?

About the Works

《Dialectics of Survival》

3D-printed components (PLA), electromagnetic pulse device, camera, aluminum extrusion, steel ball, motor, screen
Dimensions Variable
2025

Dialectics of Survival is an AI-driven installation using conveyor belts, screens, and weaponized everyday objects to create a precise, violent sensory theater. When approached, the AI assigns algorithmic survival codes and activates weapons, evoking a techno-poetics of violence.

The work explores contradictions in safety, control, and self-defense. As tools become weapons, the line between war and life shifts. It questions whether protection itself becomes a new form of discipline.

Using AI vision and classification, the piece exposes bias and misjudgment, revealing “safety” as a power construct. It asks: how can agency and resistance persist under algorithmic violence?

《Moral Machine》

3D-printed components (PLA), camera, religious statues, lifting mechanism, motor, screen, computer
Dimensions Variable
2025

Moral Machine is an installation exploring ethical training and image-based judgment. The space is divided into three zones. In one, religious statues (Buddhist, Catholic, Taoist, Hindu) move on motorized platforms. In another, cameras film the statues in real time; an AI evaluates whether the images are “moral.” Statues shift away from areas labeled “immoral,” maintaining a moral appearance.

In the third zone, viewers judge AI-transformed images (statues rendered as animals), feeding their decisions back into the system, which in turn alters the AI’s moral criteria.

The artwork reveals a recursive loop: while religion is often seen as a moral symbol, AI may read it as immoral. When viewers’ judgments are based on AI-generated images, moral value becomes fluid and absurd. This system questions the rationality of machine ethics and the plasticity of morality under technological mediation.

《Moral Machine》

3D-printed components (PLA), camera, religious statues, lifting mechanism, motor, screen, computer
Dimensions Variable
2025

Moral Machine is an installation exploring ethical training and image-based judgment. The space is divided into three zones. In one, religious statues (Buddhist, Catholic, Taoist, Hindu) move on motorized platforms. In another, cameras film the statues in real time; an AI evaluates whether the images are “moral.” Statues shift away from areas labeled “immoral,” maintaining a moral appearance.

In the third zone, viewers judge AI-transformed images (statues rendered as animals), feeding their decisions back into the system, which in turn alters the AI’s moral criteria.

The artwork reveals a recursive loop: while religion is often seen as a moral symbol, AI may read it as immoral. When viewers’ judgments are based on AI-generated images, moral value becomes fluid and absurd. This system questions the rationality of machine ethics and the plasticity of morality under technological mediation.

《Indexing Undercurrents》

Five-channel real-time generative video, five-channel sound
Dimensions Variable
2025

Indexing Undercurrents extends from the project Horizon–sea, focusing on the image-generation and viewing logics of search engines. In Horizon–sea, the artist programmed an automated image collection using keywords “Horizon” and “Sea,” aligning visual focus through machine learning to form a collective visual memory—a compressed, overlapping, and alien bodily sensation.

This work shifts attention to the search mechanism itself, using five of the world’s most popular search engines. Alongside images from Horizon–sea, keywords like “beautiful” and “baby peacock” reveal the objectification, aesthetic biases, and cultural frames embedded in algorithms. As search results increasingly derive from generative AI rather than human experience, the artist highlights how online imagery drifts from reality, becoming residues of machine hallucinations. The work questions authenticity, vision, and memory in the digital age.

《Indexing Undercurrents》

Five-channel real-time generative video, five-channel sound
Dimensions Variable
2025

Indexing Undercurrents extends from the project Horizon–sea, focusing on the image-generation and viewing logics of search engines. In Horizon–sea, the artist programmed an automated image collection using keywords “Horizon” and “Sea,” aligning visual focus through machine learning to form a collective visual memory—a compressed, overlapping, and alien bodily sensation.

This work shifts attention to the search mechanism itself, using five of the world’s most popular search engines. Alongside images from Horizon–sea, keywords like “beautiful” and “baby peacock” reveal the objectification, aesthetic biases, and cultural frames embedded in algorithms. As search results increasingly derive from generative AI rather than human experience, the artist highlights how online imagery drifts from reality, becoming residues of machine hallucinations. The work questions authenticity, vision, and memory in the digital age.

《Mutable Sentry》

Camera, robotic arm, motor, computer
Dimensions Variable
2025

Mutable Sentry is a mobile robotic installation equipped with a front-facing camera that wirelessly projects real-time footage onto a screen, overlaid with AI-generated labels and semantic processes. Beyond acting as a standalone piece, it intervenes in the exhibition space, forming new media relationships between artworks and generating a machine-to-machine sensory network.

In an AI-driven future, information flows not only between humans and machines, but also through real-time exchanges between machines themselves. This work simulates AI’s mobility in contemporary space, shifting the logic of display from human-machine interfaces to machine-machine perception. As a parable for the age of algorithmic surveillance, it prompts reflection on data sovereignty and the redefinition of lived space.

《Mutable Sentry》

Camera, robotic arm, motor, computer
Dimensions Variable
2025

Mutable Sentry is a mobile robotic installation equipped with a front-facing camera that wirelessly projects real-time footage onto a screen, overlaid with AI-generated labels and semantic processes. Beyond acting as a standalone piece, it intervenes in the exhibition space, forming new media relationships between artworks and generating a machine-to-machine sensory network.

In an AI-driven future, information flows not only between humans and machines, but also through real-time exchanges between machines themselves. This work simulates AI’s mobility in contemporary space, shifting the logic of display from human-machine interfaces to machine-machine perception. As a parable for the age of algorithmic surveillance, it prompts reflection on data sovereignty and the redefinition of lived space.

《Universal Deputy》

Depth cameras, VR device, screen, computer
Dimensions Variable
2025

Universal Deputy is an installation centered on 3D scanning and AI personas, constructing a real-time virtual space based on physical infrastructure. Using multiple cameras and algorithms, the exhibition is translated into a synchronized digital realm. Viewers enter via augmented reality, interacting with AI and becoming mediators at the boundary of the real and virtual.

The work explores 3D surveillance, the gap between reality and simulation, and AI as a social agent. Four AI personas inhabit this world: the Clairvoyant predicts past and future; the Criminalizer flags behavior as deviant; the Regulator enforces ideal norms; and the Survivor reflects the fear and resistance of artificial life. Together, they form a tense AI society that questions how we coexist with non-human intelligence.

《Universal Deputy》

Depth cameras, VR device, screen, computer
Dimensions Variable
2025

Universal Deputy is an installation centered on 3D scanning and AI personas, constructing a real-time virtual space based on physical infrastructure. Using multiple cameras and algorithms, the exhibition is translated into a synchronized digital realm. Viewers enter via augmented reality, interacting with AI and becoming mediators at the boundary of the real and virtual.

The work explores 3D surveillance, the gap between reality and simulation, and AI as a social agent. Four AI personas inhabit this world: the Clairvoyant predicts past and future; the Criminalizer flags behavior as deviant; the Regulator enforces ideal norms; and the Survivor reflects the fear and resistance of artificial life. Together, they form a tense AI society that questions how we coexist with non-human intelligence.