Fondation

The exhibition Terms of Use illustrates the ways that technologies impact our individual and collective identities. In this essay, we propose a reflection on the exhibition through the concept of the “glitch” (bug or technological failure). The word has its roots in Yiddish and German. It means “to slip” and designates an unexpected movement resulting in a mistake. In the world of technology, errors are often viewed negatively. The artists in this exhibition however, do not share this view. The experimental nature of these glitches and failures allows us to find options that are alternative to the status quo. One example of this is becoming a glitch ourselves. By sliding into power structures, we can resist the ways in which they suppress our identities and our very existence.

For this essay, we are highlighting two artists from the show, VahMirè (Ludmila Steckelberg) and Chun Hua Catherine Dong, who exemplify this concept in how they use the glitch to push back against the powers that seek to fix and limit their identities. This becomes an opportunity to instead reimagine their identities.

For her part, Chun Hua Catherine Dong, a Montréal-based artist of Chinese origin, conveys her story through virtual reality, sculpture, photography, and video installation.

For example, with her piece Mulan, she proposes a feminist reinterpretation of the Chinese folklore figure of Mulan. When war breaks out, Mulan flees her village, disguising her identity as a young woman and becoming a warrior to take her elderly father’s place in the army. Chun Hua transforms this character and her traditional environment by bringing her into the virtual world of an ocean ecosystem, where space is inherently fluid and shifting. Glitch comes to mind here, as this oceanic space allows Mulan to slip outside conventional constructs of gender identity that repress her ability to act.

This idea is continued in the piece Meet Me Half Way, where the artist transports us into a virtual universe with her. By allowing us to slip into her moving body, we are plunged into a dizzying space, with no predetermined paths. We travel through the infinite imagination of the artist where all things coexist in a dynamic and fertile way.

In this space, as in many of Chun Hua’s works, we are free to be who we want to be and to reveal different aspects of our personality, however many there are and however contrasting they may be.

Movements: Terms of Use is a tool designed by the PHI Foundation’s Department of Education to encourage visitors to develop and elaborate on some key concepts of the exhibition Terms of Use.