ANIMAL – Art Science Nature Society: National Palace Museum New Media Art Exhibition

With animals as its theme, the ANiMAL – Art Science Nature Society exhibition explores the themes of  "Encyclopaedia, compendia and scientific inquiry" and "Auspicious symbols and homophonic puns" as its main concepts, with the time axis extending from ancient mythologies to the contemporary. Works from the National Palace Museum on the theme of animals will be on exhibit, integrated with interactive new media art created by the City Museum of Hong Kong. By exploring the animal world through the diverse perspectives of art, science, nature and society, the audience will gain knowledge as well as experience the joys of ancient times. The novelty and interest in the interactive new media installations is especially suitable as a family experience. Don’t miss it!

Venue: Heavenly Lord Gallery, Level B2, Songshan Feng Tian Temple

Exhibition content:

Encyclopaedia, compendia and scientific inquiry 

This section of the exhibition describes animals and scientific exploration, and juxtaposes reproductions of paintings and interactive multimedia. Capturing the eyes of the audience at the entrance is The Universal World of Ferdinand Verbiest. This map contains the images of some 20 species of animals from Earth’s five continents as well as describes their habitats. The display satisfies the audience’s sensorial world and opens up new viewing experiences. The Ming dynasty Compendium of Materia Medica and Collected Illustrations of the Three Realms (Sancai Tuhui) illustrates ways human beings have documented living organisms throughout history and indicates shifts in artistic direction in human scientific exploration. The precision of form and details in the illustrations of natural history valued by the Qing court, which includes documentation on the size, origin, and attributes of living things, such as Manual of Birds, and Illustrated Album of Marine Miscellany, and Yang Ta-chang’s E-mo Birds, etc., as well as artistic inspirations based on contemporary medical technologies, such as the Omura Whale Documentary, and CT Scans of a cat and a dog, which will surely amaze. 

Auspicious symbols and homophonic puns
Through reproduction paintings juxtaposed with multimedia displays, “Auspicious Symbols” describes the auspicious metaphors drawn from the external form of animals or their homophony. The audience will experience the abstract folk practices and values of societies from various eras. For instance, the character for bat (蝠, fu2) is a homophone for the character for blessing (福, fu2), hence bats are a metaphor for blessings. The character for cat (貓, mao1) and butterfly (蝶, dieh2) form a homophone for the phrase meaning aged and venerable (耄耋, mao1 dieh2), and so paintings of cats and butterflies symbolize “aged and venerable” in conveying good wishes for longevity. In addition to the work “Cats and Butterflies in the Springtime,” this exhibition includes works such as the projection mapping "Prosperity Multiplies a Hundredfold," “The Golden Calf,” “Morphosis of Castiglione's Hundred Horses,” and “Marvels within the Sea – Immersive and Interactive Theater” which will delight the eyes and ears of the audience. 

For reference see: 動物藝想主視覺