Idle Running Chen Hui-chiao, 674x1670cm, Mixed Media Installation, 2004 “Pseudo Hackers’ Art in Parallel Zones ” Museum of Contemporary Arts, Taipei 2005/1/29-3/20

If water is fire, flaming upward, at the center of spiral time; if fire is water, in the see-through windbag, the sky a higher abyss. Eternity inside the empty – exile – swirling in the eroded memories… constantly seeking out the self – a virtual visit – in the self’s judgment; where to? Except for death, the echoless absorption, what can be known? The world did not begin together with you, nor would it end together with you; is the regressive pulse not enough? Maybe, magic – can discipline you, lonely, in a visual swing; touch the future as if listening to the oracle.

Idle Running can be an expression of idling, waste, vain or emptiness. It might even symbolize the stagnant feeling of certain dialogues or theories that cannot be put to work in our lives. Perhaps it refers to a period of blankness when we face awkward situations or the repetition or waste of certain kinds of electronics, such as the idling time before a machine accelerates. No matter what symptom this feeling tries to explain, its principle is still running. Take a dream for example. A dream is a representation of one’s subconscious, and a contradiction that this person is experiencing. It shows a dual situation that this person faces. It shows a “conscious magnetic tape” within a dual situation that this person faces. This work locks the world into the display located in our mind. Yet at the same time people can look at themselves to see the untrimmed, idling, rotating, empty selves that exist in their inner world. They continue to observe and examine these parts of themselves but cannot escape the scene of political influences…
In Idle Running, has inlaid 150 changing pictures from 50 sets into the ground. In these pictures, the viewers can see designs such as flying shadows, stars, the sun, the moon and poems. In the spiritual explanation of soul, light symbolizes the consciousness of the spirit; in the vast universe, each person has his or her own star. Before we came into our early bodies, we witnessed the development of the universe. In the world of Tarot, the sun symbolizes life, the moon insecurity, and the stars hope. However, when I took symbols of stars, suns and moons from the national flags of 193 countries, I found that 82 flags were from countries in Asia and Africa. It seems that most of the time through our journey of life we are in a state of nameless insecurity. We continue to look for the light of hope.