After decontextualizing the nouns that carry the collective memories of different periods in the history of Taiwan, the artist rewrites and inverts them into a set of atypical mythological prophecies.
Battle City 1 – The Glory of Taiwan
The Glory of Taiwan is a term whose emergence reveals an apparently paradoxical phenomenon. It insinuates that Taiwan had long been in a dark cave, undiscovered by any civilization in the world. It was not until the Portuguese exclamation “Ilha Formosa” that this island broke through the dense mist named this world and basked in the earliest glory of Taiwan. As the theme of Battle City 1 – The Glory of Taiwan elaborates the inferiority com- plex about Taiwan’s impotence. The society’s collective pursuit of success and superiority ultimately nullified its own existence, and a catastrophe known as The Glory of Taiwan ensues.
Battle City 2 – Economic Miracle
The Separate Customs Territory of Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen, and Matsu as an economic entity is one of Taiwan’s internationally recognized identities nowadays. Revolving around the economic miracle, Battle City 2 – Economic Miracle depicts Taiwan as a mandate whose reconstruction has been entrusted to the JJ Corporation by the United Nations in the form of BOT (build-operate-transfer) after the nuclear disaster known as The Glory of Taiwan, and the JJ Corporation plans to transform Taiwan into “New Formosa,” a special economic zone for foreign exchange earnings. In this story, the investors also call the “New Formosa” an “economic farm” in the sense of a farming concentration camp, where Formosans are kept as economic animals intend- ed to offer services of all stripes for the investors.
About the Artist
CHANG Li-Ren was Born in 1983 in Taiwan, and currently has no fixed place of residence.