Yuan Goang-Ming: Tomorrowland

Striking exhibition at the Hayward Gallery of three new video installations by Taieanese artist Yuan Goang-Ming.
 
As anyone who follows me might have realised I’m not a fan of video art but I loved this show! My usual objection is how long some of the work if but these three pieces were fairly short as around 5 minutes and I even watched one of them through twice.  

The first film was drone footage of the annual air raid drill in the city of Wanan which shows a deserted city with empty streets and abandoned cars. The film moved slowly over the city and is very still, peaceful an unreal. At first viewing I thought it was a video game not a real city.
The second film used a similar technique of slow overhead filming of deserted space but this time it looks at the Taiwanese forest and coastline and shows abandoned building and a nuclear power plant. Buildings suddenly loom out of the screen following expanses of trees and leading to the sea.  

My favourite was the last one in which he had reproduced an empty amusement park which he then blew up in slow motion. This was the one I had to watch twice. Each time the moment of the explosion came as a real shock. I loved the touch of having a park bench for you to sit on to watch. It reminded me of the wonderful videos of exploding flower arrangements by Ori Gersht.  

Closed on 6 August 2018

 

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