Paul Sermon Diary from Taipei
Paul Sermon is creating a new, site-specific telepresence work in Taipei, Taiwan. To enable this commission, Paul will be working in the studios at Taipei Artist's Village (TAV) until 6 May.
Gabriella Giannachi has begun a dialogue with Paul, published on the Presence Collaboratory at http://presence.stanford.edu:3455/Collaboratory/500, following the process of making the piece.
Paul writes:
Some images attached of the locations I have visited. The Chinese housing complex I spoke about is called Treasure Hill, this was a really inspiring space and several of the houses have been purchased by the city government and turned into artist studios/galleries.
The artists are working with a lot of found objects and using the space as living/working/studio/exhibition environments, turning one of the spaces into a bar also.
But in general I don't think it is possible to use the space for a media art installation, it's just not secure enough, it's also very damp and electrical supplies are not reliable.
But anyway - very inspiring. I'm also attaching a photo from The Huashan Culture Park I visited Wednesday to give you some idea of the scale of the space.
They also have some small studio/bedroom spaces here at Taipei Artists Village which I could use to produce an installation work which could draw some of the thoughts gathered from Treasure Hill. I will talk more about the concept emerging here in my next email.I'm intrigued by your [Gabriella's] notion absentness in the telepresent space. In my work/notion nothing is absent but rather becoming redefined - the absence of touch is embodied in the expanded sense of sight. The same could be said for blind person - the absence of sight is embodied in the expanded sense of touch or sound. Can we expand this to cultural experience?
Over the next three months we will be following and documenting Paul's process.