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Dao Gives Birth to One at the CAC


Venue : Chinese Arts Centre
Start date: 6th July 2012
End date : 1st September 2013
Visit date : 17th July, 2012
Mr Monkey watching Dao Gives Birth to One
Two screens of Dao Gives Birth to One
Mr Monkey scampered along to the Chinese Arts Centre to see their latest exhibit, Dao Gives Birth to One, an interactive video installation by Hong Kong based artist Hung Keung.

Mr Monkey deciding whether to go left or right
Mr Monkey appearing on screen in Dao Gives Birth to One
Hung Keung's work explores the interaction of modern society and the principle of Dao (the root of Taoism).

Mr Monkey read a translation of the first sentence of chapter 42 of the Tao Teh Ching, then chose one of the two ways into the main gallery space.

He found himself looking at a row of large video screens, which stretch almost the length of the main gallery. Clouds of Chinese characters spin and drift in swirls and clusters across the screens; sometimes parts of humans appear on the screens and the characters drift over them. Mr Monkey found it all rather restful.

Mr Monkey watched the video screens for a few minutes, wondering where the interactive element was.

Then someone else came in, and Mr Monkey realised that Hung Keung had trained cameras on the two entrances to the viewing area so that everyone walking in appeared briefly on a couple of screens.

He immediately made his humans help him experiment and found out that whenever a visitor appeared on a screen hordes of Chinese letters flew across the screen to surround them. Mr Monkey experimented with the flying caligraphy for a while, then left to catch the train home.

Dao Gives Birth to One runs until September 1st 2012.

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