born 1954 Taiwan
digital drifter
Shu Lea Cheang, the director of "I.K.U." which created a sensation
at many international film festivals all over the world, was born in
Taiwan and acquired United States nationality. Now she is rushing
from city to city all over the world carrying a PowerBook as a media
artist and a movie director.
She does not have a permanent address. The only way of making
contact with her is through her email address on the Internet. She
is, so to speak, a digital nomad.
shulea@earthlink.net
She has visited and stayed in Tokyo repeatedly while she was working
at NTT/ICC in Nishi-Shinjuku for the net installation and other
works as an artist. She toured many clubs in Tokyo and found a
freaky staff for this movie.
Although "I.K.U." is set in Tokyo in the near future, she did not
use the familiar scenery like the televisions on the walls in
Shibuya. Her point of view as an outsider who had experienced life
in Tokyo shut the familiar scenery out.
Her perseverance in showing many amazing visual ideas to the staff
made them admire her. In fact, she requested some of the youngest
members of the staff to create an amazing CG scene in which a pussy
rushes into a penis, and spent half a year to complete it.
She said that her sexuality has been confirmed in New York. Also she
said that she found the element of net surfing resembles the
structure of the American pornography which is just repeating sex
scenes in many different situations. Noticing this, she created the
images using effects as a cyber artist to complete "I.K.U.".
[Profile]
Some of Shu Lea Cheang's net installation works are now at the
Guggenheim Museum("Brandon", 1998-1999) in New York, NTT/ICC ("Buy
One Get One", 1997) in Tokyo, and at Walker Art Center ("Bowling
Alley", 1995) in Minneapolis as part of the permanent collections.
Exhibitions in the galleries have been held at Ohta Fine Arts in
Tokyo and The Project in New York. She also joined a biennial
exhibition 2000 at the Museum of Modern Arts in Taiwan, and worked
at Site Comtemporary Center in Paris. Next July she will hold a net
installation called "Baby Play" at NTT/ICC in Tokyo.
Her first movie for the theater called "Fresh Kill" is an ecological
cyber movie, so to speak, which is set in New York in the near
future. It appeared on screen at Berlin International Film Festival
as a Premier.
After "I.K.U.", Shu Lea Cheang is preparing her next movie "FLUID",
another SF pornography, at Sextropa, that is a new section of
Zentropa, a film production that director Lars Von Torier manages.
http://brandon.guggenheim.org/shuleaWORKS
EDUCATION 1979 New York University, M.A. in Cinema Studies 1976 National Taiwan University, B.A. in History SELECTED EXHIBITIONS 2003 Zone of Urgency, curated by Hou Hanru, 50th Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy Hardcore, curated by Jerome Sans, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France Burn, FACT, Liverpool, England LOVE, Magazin 4 (Vorarlberger Kunstverein), Bregenz, Austria 2002 The Field Project, New York, NY Metropolis, Art Chicago 2002, Chicago, IL Body Ploy, symposium at AIM II: Luna Park Project and the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) in Los Angeles Shrink to fit, Museum of Communication, Bern Stop, Amnesty International online digital art exhibition, The Amory Show 2002, New York, NY Kingdom of Piracy, ArtFuture2002, Acer Digital Art Center,Taiwan 2001 Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporaneo, Seville, Spain Scifi Digi Porn, Julia Friedman Gallery, Chicago (solo exhibition) Baby Play, InterCommunication Center (ICC), Tokyo (solo exhibition) I.K.U. Stripped, Women Art Network, Tokyo I.K.U., Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, OH (screening) Body as Byte, Kunstmuseum Luzern, Switzerland 2000 Taipei Biennale, Taipei Fine Art Museum, Taiwan Fluid, The Project, New York (solo exhibition) Carry On, Media Arts & Research Studies (MARS), Institute for Media Communication, Bonn, Germany I.K.U., Premiere, Sundance Film Festival I.K.U., ICA, London, England Dystopia and Identity in the Age of Global Communications, Tribes Gallery, New York, NY Ota Fine Arts, Tokyo, Japan 1999 Brandon, Guggenheim Museum, New York, co-production with Banff Center for the Arts, Canada, DeWaag, Society for Old and New Media, Amsterdam 1997 Buy One Get One, ICC Biennale, Tokyo, Japan (award, catalogue) 1996 Elephant Cage Butterfly Locker, Atopic Site exhibition, Tokyo 1995 Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York Bowling Alley, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis 1994 Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (solo exhibition) Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, OH (solo exhibition) Fresh Kill, Berlin International Film Festival 1993 To Enter, The Final Frontier Exhibition, The New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, NY Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York 1992 The Museum of Modern Art (solo exhibition) Those Fluttering Objects of Desire, Exit Art, New York (solo exhibition) 1991 The Airwaves Project, CAPP Street Project, San Francisco, California 1990 Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (solo exhibition) Making News/Making History, The Institute for Contemporary Art, Boston International Center For Photography, New York (solo exhibition) The Feminist "I", The Brooklyn Museum, New York 1980-90 A producing member of media collectives, Paper Tiger TV & Deep Dish TV SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Asai, Takashi. "Fingers and Kisses." Dice, Japan, 1995. Bailey, Andy. "Tokyo Porn." The Face, Vol 3, number 46, November 2000. Carr, C. "In Carr, On Edge: Performance at the End of the Twentieth Century." Hanover, New Hamshire: Wesleyan University Press, pgs. 206-11, 1993. Chua, Lawrence and Hagedorn, Jessica. "A Dialogue on Fresh Kill." Bomb, New York, 1994. Chua, Lawrence, "An Odd Circuit," Art Asia Pacific, Fall edition 2000. Furlong, Lucinda. "Shu Lea Cheang." The New American Film and Video Series. New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 1990. Furlong, Lucinda. "Gender Bending, Works of Shu Lea Cheang." College Press, 1996. Grundberg, Andy. "Making News/Making History: Live From Tiananmen Square." The New York Times, June 22, 1990. Hanhardt, John. "Media Art Worlds: New Expressions in Film and Video," 1991-93, 1993 Biennial Exhibition. New York : Whitney Museum of American Art : Harry N. Abrams, 1993. pgs. 36-5. Highs, Kathy and Cheang, Shu Lea, eds. "Shot/Reverse Shot, A Cross Circuit Videologue." Felix, New York, 1992. Howell, John, ed. "Breakthroughs, Avant Garde Artists in Europe and America," 1950-1990, Wexner Center for the Arts, New York: Rizzoli, 1991. Kotz, Liz. "Shu Lea Cheang at Exit Art." Art In America, Vol 81, January 1993, p.106. Kroker, Arthur and Marilouise, "Web Delirium, The Okinawa Project." Digital Delerium. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1997. Nakamoto, Akio. "Shu Lea Cheang." Wired Japan, 1995. Ralli, Tania and Mc Neil, Brett. "Porn Free." Chicago Journal. July 19, 2001. Stamets, Bill. "Now Playing: Visions of a cyber-Satyricon." Chicago Reader, July 13, 2001, Vol 30. "Whitney Biennal." Art Forum, April, 1993. "Hot List." Rolling Stone, August 30, 2001, pg. 76. SELECTED GRANTS The Rockefeller Foundation, Moving Image Installation and Interactive Media Fellowship AT&T, New Vioce/ New Visions National Endowment for the Arts, Visual Arts Fellowship Asian Cultural Council Fellowship Civitella Ranieri Fellowship, Italy The Mondrian Foundation, Ministry for Cultural Affairs, Holland The New York City Department of Cultural Affairs Artist in Residency, Amsterdam Fonds voor de Kunst Institute on the Arts and Civic Dialogue, Harvard University New York Foundation for the Arts, Computer Art Fellowship Innovative Filmmaker of Outstanding Achievement, Mix Festival, New York New York State Council on the Arts Lyn Blumenthal Memorial Fund for Independent Media Award
Shu Lea Cheang at Art and Culture Network
Shu Lea Cheang at City of Women
Shu Lea Cheang at Offline Artist Information
Shu Lea Cheang email exchange with Geert Lovink
Shu Lea Cheang at the Julia Friedman Gallery
Shu Lea Cheang at Art Institute of Chicago
Shu Lea Cheang at the 50th Venice Biennial 2003
more Shu Lea Cheang at the 50th Venice Biennial 2003
Shu Lea Cheang at Virtual Exhibitors
Shu Lea Cheang at Whitney Artport
Shu Lea Cheang at Women Make Movies
