"Swallow the blue pill and the story ends. You wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. Swallow the red pill, and I'll show you how deep the rabbit hole goes." Neo, who believes he can control his own destiny, chooses to take the red pill and see the "truth." He is seen as a savior by many, but ultimately faces the paradox of an endless loop and inevitable destruction, in the core theme of the sci-fi movie milestone "The Matrix."
In contrast, Chang Ting-Tong's first solo exhibition in Taiwan brings in the Automata popular in Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries, and collaborates with the renowned British scholar Simon Schaffer. Through the debate between two different ideologies, the reverence and aspiration towards rational order and science, and the irrational fear of machines, the artist and interdisciplinary collaborators attempt to create contemporary Automata and use this artistic production to resolve unsolvable paradoxes.
Philosophical Toys During the pre-industrial era in the Middle Ages, the advancement of gear, water mill, and iron smelting technology, along with the assistance of the clock-making industry, ushered in the golden age of automata. First-tier cities in Europe, such as Paris, London, and Amsterdam, began to produce exquisitely crafted clocks and watches. In addition to the basic timekeeping function, the surface of the clock also featured gorgeous decorations and mechanical systems that demonstrated complex and realistic movements, such as a mechanical maid playing the piano or a bird flapping its wings, or even a glass fountain. This accurately reflected the philosophical aspirations since the Enlightenment, which aimed to prove that human beings could use rational thinking to overcome their inherent limitations and achieve a more perfect ideal society. Therefore, automata have more positive spiritual significance behind them, representing the promotion of science and the education of the masses.
Artificial Intelligence However, as the technology of "machines that imitate humans" has advanced, it has also brought about more anxiety. For example, the Turk (1770) created by Wolfgang von Kempelen, a self-playing clock that could report time and play chess automatically, defeated celebrities such as Napoleon and Franklin, and countless challengers at the time, causing a sensation in European society. Such superhuman intelligence, however, caused fear and opened up speculation, becoming the theoretical basis for people's reflection on the negative effects of technological progress in the future. Classic films such as Blade Runner and The Terminator illustrate the dystopian thinking that machines will eventually replace or even destroy human beings. The long-standing debate between these two sides of the paradox will be a question that artists pose to our contemporary society today, attempting to use artistic means to guide viewers to find their own answers in this insoluble proposition.
In the form of contemporary automata, the two works Pierre Jaquet-Droz Singing Bird Cage 1780 (2017) and Jean-Baptise-Andre' Furet's African Prince Mantel Clock 1784 (2018) use the form of automata to address contemporary issues generated by the internet, borrowing the voices of robots and birds to tell their stories.
"Pierre Jaquet-Droz Singing Bird Cage 1780 (2017)" discusses the meaning of "freedom" in the age of the internet, particularly through the use of crypto technology, which makes it difficult for personal identities to be detected and creates a gray area beyond the reach of government control. The well-known website "Silk Road" is an example of this. Silk Road is a black market shopping site that operates using Tor's anonymous service, which guarantees the anonymity of its users. Because of its anonymity, Silk Road sells items that the government cannot control, ranging from drugs, guns, counterfeit money, to weapons and assassination requests. As of 2012, Silk Road's monthly sales were estimated to be slightly over $1.2 million. Pierre Jaquet-Droz Singing Bird Cage 1780 (2017) has a mechanical bird recite Silk Road's founding declaration, telling the story of how human society is completely controlled by the government and the only way to break free from government power is through crypto technology and black market transactions, which can achieve complete market freedom. Only through market freedom can individuals achieve complete personal freedom and unleash their full potential. Behind the political manifesto of the mechanical bird is the hidden truth of the darkness brought about by Silk Road, where drug and weapons trading brings huge profits to organized crime, and its founder has been involved in numerous cases of abuse and kidnapping.
"Jean-Baptise-Andre' Furet's African Prince Mantel Clock 1784 (2018)" addresses racial discrimination in the age of the internet. "The Mundane Afrofuturist Manifesto" was proposed by American artists, directors, and other cultural workers, advocating for non-white artists to find new artistic languages that conform to 21st-century identity politics. The manifesto points out that the virtual world of the internet often leads people to believe that everyone is equal in the virtual world. The exploration of outer space makes people believe that there is another beautiful imagined world beyond the earth. However, in reality, these simply shift people's attention away from the current unequal world, and through the internet, racial conflicts, violence, stereotypes, and colonial power structures only become more dominant, and the utopia that people dream of only becomes more distant rather than closer. "The Mundane Afrofuturist Manifesto" encourages contemporary artists to observe, understand, and deal with the reality of the present rather than an unreachable imaginary world.