Human Observation is a long-term image experiment project by O CHI WAI (Os). This exhibition features his photos from the project. The artist likes walking across different corners in the city, observing and recording at will the surrounds with a smartphone. Shooting photos in an intuitive way, he may be a top gun in the group where ‘everyone is a photographer’. Educated in visual communication design in Taiwan, Os abandons conventional photography techniques, and most of his photographic works were taken with a mobile phone at whim, on themes such as figures, nature and buildings. The works, although on subjects unrelated to one another, convey his inner feelings through visual media. He looks at the world, at Macau people’s subjective consciousness, with a focus on daily life and work. Observing others, he found that man is a strange animal, always sending messages with dressing, facial expressions, behaviors and movements. In Macau, a city of diversity, various lifestyles co-exist after centuries of interaction among peoples from different cultures, creating a close yet strange relationship between individuals, which is typical of Macau. This exhibition, combing Os’s records from Human Observation in recent years, shows more than 100 photos all around the exhibition space - placed in a disorderly way. They constitute image fragments of Os, dreamy yet realistic. Also on display is a video work converted from images and then set to music which serves as the background sound for the whole exhibition venue. This way, the artist pieces together audio-visual elements to bring out the theme at a deeper level.

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The exhibition then introduces the video installation by extending this concept. A mirror confronts visitors once they enter the venue. In such a straightforward way, each exhibition goer’s activities on the site will be monitored and shown through visual communication behind scenes. This type of invisible surveillance is becoming more and more popular, on the one hand because of man's need for sense of security, on the other hand sense of insecurity - as if binary opposition was rooted in humans, appearing in different forms in different times.

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The British TV series Black Mirror explores the relationship between man and technology, with each episode revolving around technology. The protagonists usually enjoy conveniences brought by the technology but will end up suffering from the negative consequences from using it. In one episode, most people choose to implant memory chips, using the eyeballs as lenses to record all the scenes beheld and archive recorded footage for future reading or use as evidence. Such extreme self-monitoring may soon become a reality in humans. Os, as a recorder of visual images, is precisely presenting the most authentic, real-world images with the latest technology.

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Curator
Cora Si