When artists work with technology, they fundamentally rewrite narratives of hype and mistrust, Chung told Observer.
It’s not every day you witness robotic arms with brushes in hand, painting in harmonious tandem alongside a human. A rolled canvas, blank just seconds ago, is slowly being covered in an abstract medley of aquas and whites that bear the mark of three entities: two machines and one Chinese-Canadian artist, Sougwen Chung.
This isn’t the year 2035 or a leaked episode of Black Mirror Season 7, but a live demonstration of Chung’s practice before an intimate audience in Scorpios Bodrum beach club in Turkey as part of the sprawling retreat’s Encounters program that is an incubator for constructive experimentation across disciplines. This season’s recently closed exhibition, “Evolving Perspectives,” probed the co-existence of technology and humankind through a creative lens.
Seated in Scorpios Bodrum’s wellness hub, the Ritual Space, we watch Chung, who identifies as non-binary, take a seat between their two robotic systems placed at opposite peripherals of the canvas. Boldly dressed in white for the occasion, the artist enters what seems like a meditative state, despite being surrounded by curious watchers. Later, Chung would tell me that this state of complete immersion is one of the many drivers behind these performances: to escape in a room full of people and invite onlookers to do the same.
