It’s-a Me, _____!

From 18/07/2025 to 02/08/2025

It’s-a Me, _____!

2025 Absolute Space for the Arts Taiwan-France-Germany Action Rally Project – Berlin

18.07 – 02.08.2025

Tue – Sat, 14:00-19:00

Opening: Fri, 18. 07. 2025, 19:00

Curator：LIAO Chien-Chiao（廖芊喬）

When a teacher says to children, “Alright, go ahead and play,” most of them will quickly pick up something from the ground that interests them and start creating their own game. But when a teacher says to university students, — “Well, go ahead and play!”—a series of questions such as “What game?” “How do we play?” “What can we play with?” and so on. Before starting a game, we usually need rules. Otherwise we don’t seem to know how to begin a game. Similarly, before drawing, we require a theme; before singing or performing music, we need a score; before dancing, we find a center; even before thinking, we need to elucidate a concept or established knowledge. It seems like the act of play is inseparable from its corresponding rules. In this sense, the game and its rules exist in a relationship of mutual subordination. We ultimately end up mastering the way of playing, but hardly establish new rules or personal rules through the act of play itself. In this case, how can we walk away from this restraint and limitation?

In terms of art creation, breaking the rules of a game is undoubtedly considered a form of critique, often with classical irony. But, Platonic irony (l’ironie platonicienne), happens through dialogue, where the player defines themselves in relation to an opponent. This is a distinct difference from the Pre-Socratic philosophy of satire, which aims to dismantle the rules. Therefore, the breaking of rules often becomes the dialectical focus between opposing players. Therefore, the breaking of rules often becomes the dialectic orientation or theme through the opposition between players.

More precisely, the destruction of rules or the metamorphosis of game preexist in the improvisation of games. These improvisations precede the existence of any confirmed players. This is not a process whereby a subject (player) invents a new game, nor is it a hierarchical (subordination) relation between subject and object. For this case, the game is already defined since its rules and players are in place. On the contrary, “to play” pre-exist the games itself, it is in a state of undetermined, virtual without rules, “to play” always precedes before the actual beginning of any game.

When irony, as a form of critique, becomes too influential, too great in this generation, ignoring the political issues, becomes the easiest and banal attitude. In that case, if contemporary artists search themes only within a certain current political discussion — and not in a political event themselves, — even when searching themes rooted in collective memory, the critical form will appear weakened. By contrast, if the contemporary artist seeks to move away from the most destructive method of ironic critique, a critical approach of humor and perversion makes a world possible shaped by contemporary art. It transforms the sense of this world itself. As French philosopher Gilles Deleuze once stated, “To ground is to metamorphose.” (Fonder, c’est métamorphoser.）

Panel Discussion

Moderater： LIAO Chien-Chiao 廖芊喬（Project Curator）

Panelist：Suzy ROYAL(GlogauAIR On-Site Curator)

Sat, 26.07.2025, 19:00–21:00

GlogauAIR / Glogauer Str. 16, 10999 Berlin Germany

Thoughts and Actions – Ink Painting Workshop

Instructor：TSAI Tsung-Yu 蔡宗祐 (Exhibiting Artist)

Participants：

approximately 30 participants

Workshop I

Sat, 19.07.2025, 15:00–17:00

GlogauAIR / Glogauer Str. 16, 10999 Berlin Germany