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...