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Review 

2022 Beyond Simulacra: Hou Chung-Ying's 2022 Solo Exhibition The Theory of Mimesis

by: Chen Ming-Hui / Associate Professor, Institute of Creative Industries Design, National Cheng Kung University

 

The hand is a vital organ of the human body. Through different gestures, we convey emotions and ideas. With our fingers, we "express" our emotions. For many years, Hou Chung-Ying has used "hands" as the central subject of his artistic practice. Whether through painting, mixed media, or his latest work Simulacra Project (2022), which incorporates AI technology, hands remain the core theme. He integrates religious imagery from Daoism and Buddhism with Western iconography, creating a series of powerful and striking artworks.

 

Hou Chung-Ying is one of the rare Taiwanese artists dedicated to realism. With his masterful realist techniques, he has long explored the hand as an artistic subject, imbuing it with imaginative significance. Hands not only express human emotions; their skin, wrinkles, and textures also symbolize age, ethnicity, and culture. In The Theory of Mimesis, his solo exhibition at the Tainan Art Museum, he presents two major series: Radical Hand (2021), consisting of 25 works, and four hyperrealistic oil paintings from Panacea. In response to technological advancements and new media, his 2022 exhibition also showcases The Formless Project, an AI-driven interactive piece created in collaboration with Huang Yen-Chang, Assistant Professor at National Tainan University's Department of Applied Mathematics, Yen Yi-Hsiang, Assistant Professor at Feng Chia University's School of Architecture, and the ROSO Robotics Construction Lab at Feng Chia University.

Jasia Reichardt, the Polish-British curator who organized Cybernetic Serendipity (1968) at London's ICA—the first major global exhibition on digital, network, and computer art—proclaimed 1956 as the beginning of computer art in her book The Computer in Art (1971). The rapid development of computer graphics in the 1960s led to the emergence of "digital art" as a term in 1972 when British artist Harold Cohen developed AARON, an AI-driven painting robot. AARON became the first AI artwork in art history, and Cohen continued collaborating with it until his death in 2016.

 

In Simulacra Project, Hou Chung-Ying hand-painted 95 bodhisattva icons, merging imagery from the Qing Dynasty Great Compassion Dharani Sutra and the Republican Era Great Compassion Dharani Sutra. He then utilized AI technology to generate interactive works. These 95 bodhisattvas, standing on lotus pedestals and adorned in flowing robes, evoke the mystical and fantastical creatures of Shan Hai Jing, China's earliest geographical compendium. Their faces are replaced by overlapping and distorted hands, creating an absurd yet intriguing landscape of foreign myths.

 

Hou Chung-Ying states: "We live in an era of image explosion. Under the hyper-evolution of artificial intelligence, all illusions have become reality." Our sensory perception of the physical world is mediated through art, yet in today's digital culture, images and information are often fabricated or manipulated. This shifts the way we perceive reality. Maurice Merleau-Ponty, the French phenomenologist, posited that the body is the medium through which we experience the world, making it a subject rather than an object. Conversely, Jean Baudrillard, the influential French sociologist, argued that Western society is at the end of industrial production, where values and meanings are increasingly ambiguous. He famously questioned the reality of the 1990-1991 Gulf War in Libération, suggesting that our culture has become saturated with media-mediated experiences rather than firsthand encounters.

 

In the digital age, our perception and experience of the world differ from the past. Our awareness is no longer limited to the material environment; instead, digital culture and technological simulations create a hybrid space between reality and virtuality, altering how we experience the world. Simulacra Project represents a major shift in Hou Chung-Ying's artistic practice, integrating AI technology to engage with contemporary digital culture. The work involves scanning his 95 bodhisattva drawings into digital files, which are then "fed" into an AI program. The AI learns Hou's artistic style and autonomously generates unpredictable bodhisattva images, introducing an element of surprise for both the artist and viewers.

 

Presented as an AI-tech artwork, The Simulacra Project is a co-creation between Hou Chung-Ying and artificial intelligence. The artist uses hand-drawn bodhisattva images as a foundational reference for the AI to create new interpretations. Hou describes this process as "a dialogue between painting and AI, rethinking the value of contemporary painting, and exploring the interdependence between humans and AI in the post-human era." His statement explicitly highlights his interest in the human-AI relationship, especially in an era where technology and the internet deeply shape our existence. Today, bodily experience extends beyond physical space to include digital and virtual realms, presenting a new paradigm of post-human existence.

 

The Theory of Mimesis also features 23 framed paintings from Hou's 2021 exhibition at the National Dr. Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall. These works, painted directly on frames, challenge conventional notions of painting. Traditionally, frames serve as supporting structures for paintings, yet in this series, they become the central subject. Inspired by the academic exercise of "framing with the hand" and the concept of painting as an enclosed space, Hou transforms frames into a primary element of artistic expression. This inversion—where the frame overshadows the canvas—disrupts traditional viewer expectations, compelling audiences to reconsider the role of framing, boundaries, and limitations in art. His refined technique captures various hand gestures, intricately interwoven with decorative motifs such as dragons, clouds, fish, and plants, enhancing the series' precision and symbolic depth.

 

Additionally, the exhibition showcases four large-scale works from Panacea. Each nearly two meters wide, these hyperrealistic paintings depict capsule-like objects with fingers on both ends, occupying most of the canvas. Suspended in surreal compositions, the capsules float against a backdrop of intricate Islamic-inspired patterns. Hou extends his decorative aesthetic, integrating delicate floral motifs reminiscent of Islamic art. The visual contrast between the hyperreal floating capsules and the elaborate patterns heightens the works' dramatic tension. Regarding Panacea, Hou states: "Through the complex composition of sci-fi objects, cultural symbols, and natural totems, I suggest that we may be facing a moment akin to The Matrix, where Morpheus offers Neo the choice between the red and blue pills." This series reflects his response to contemporary techno-culture, questioning whether we should remain attached to our physical experiences of reality or embrace the artificial, post-produced, and potentially illusory virtual world. These paintings subtly foreshadow the conceptual motivations behind his AI works.

 

Hou Chung-Ying studied at The Prince's Foundation School of Traditional Arts in 2012, where he learned medieval and Islamic traditional crafts, as well as pictorial composition techniques. Few contemporary artists specialize in these methods, yet Hou's passion for painting and traditional craftsmanship sets him apart as one of Taiwan's rare artists proficient in both European and Islamic techniques. His work not only demonstrates technical mastery but also reflects deep engagement with digital culture and technological environments. Over the past decade, his practice has synthesized multiple cultural and artistic codes, incorporating medieval, Islamic, and Buddhist influences. The Theory of Mimesis represents a culmination of his past ten years of exploration—a grand synthesis of tradition and contemporary practice, craft and fine art, marking a significant milestone in his artistic journey.

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