“Object-Subjectivities” by Linda Lai, Floating Projects Collective

Exhibiting Artist(s):

• Linda Lai
• Floating Projects Collective

In 2010 Lai founded the Floating Projects Collective, which currently consists of about 20 members engaging in experimental art production. The Collective participated in Lai’s Object-Subjectivities (2016), a new work with installation and performance components based on Object-activity (1989) and LOOK: Object-activity (2006). In July 1989, one month after the June-Fourth Tiananmen massacre, an improvised performance was staged by artists including Choi Yan-chi, Leung Ping-kwan, Mui Cheuk-yin, Yau Ching and others. The performance was reconstructed by Lai in 2006 and once again on 21 May 2016; for Lai, each rendition has a different conceptual, pictorial and formal focus. She writes:
While LOOK: Object-activity suggested a time and mind at ease, Object-Subjectivities in 2016 asserts the therapeutic power of communication via doing things together. The principle of “collective co-individuation” manifests itself in a play with objects – each performer follows his/her own self-made routines to create a meditative space that also invites sharing and exchange.  [source: artradarjournal.com/2016/07/06/no-references-9-hong-kong-video-and-new-media-artists-part-1/]

Object-Subjectivities: FPC performing at No References
The performance “Object-Subjectivities” (OS), performed by 10 Floating Projects members, annotates Linda Lai’s wall installation of the same title. OS dialogues with “Object-Activities” in 1989 and “LOOK: Object-activity” in 2006. OS is a series of structured improvisations in 3 acts with a coda. Cleansing with water is the overall metaphor. The 1989 performance “Object-Activities” was a cross-disciplinary modernist art experiment. Performed in July after the June-Fourth massacre, it was a “mourning” event. The 2016 performance “Object-Subjectivities” asserts the therapeutic power of “doing things together.” The principle of “collective co-individuation” manifests itself in a play with objects. Each performer follows his/her own self-made “algorithmic” routines.
The resultant performance is a meditative space that also invites sharing and exchange.

Act One: ”automation, emergence, artificial intelligence, programmed democracy”
Act Two: ”hardworking algorithms”
Act Three: ”collective co-individuation”
Coda: ”relentless remembering”

Total performance time: about 40 minutes

Concept/structure: Linda LAI; Producer: WONG Chun-hoi; Water closet (design): WONG Chun-hoi, Wing CHEUK; Chinese text: LAI Wai-leung; Performers: Linda LAI (live automatic writing), WONG Chun-hoi, Andio LAI, WONG Fuk-kuen, Hugo YEUNG, Fiona LEE, Kenji WONG, Anna CHIM, DING Cheuk-laam, and CHEUK Wing-nam.