The Museum of Modern Art at Asia University is currently exhibiting "In Quest for Taiwan's Palette - Taiwan in the Eyes of the Senior Artists." The exhibition features an integration of new technology with paintings by famous Taiwanese senior artists to create an animated video in virtual augmented reality, thereby providing the viewers with a brand-new and “metaversed” experience to walk into the paintings virtually. Pan Fan, Director of Museum of Modern Art, professor Francis Li and professor Kai-Chun Hou, both from the Department of Digital Media Design, joined the “AU Art Festival” in April and shared their innovative collaborative creation in this exhibition with AU faculty and students.

Director Pan said that the highlight of this exhibition is the demonstration of how the paintings by San-Lang Yang, Yu-Shan Lin, Mai-shu Li, Ke-chhun Liau, Hsueh-Hu Kuo, Chi-Hsiang Liu, Shuei-Long Yan and Chih-Chu Lin are digitalized and presented in an animated mode. Much like the animated version of Van Gogh's "The Starry Night", this exhibition also offers the viewers a unique and refreshing experience of appreciating paintings from a technological perspective.

“When we were planning a special exhibition last year,” Director Pan observed, “there were so many difficulties to overcome during the process.” First of all, it is a big challenge to collect the works of these senior painters as their paintings are owned by different collectors and museums elsewhere. Secondly, it also takes a great deal of time and effort to arrange the digitalized files of these paintings. However, inspired by Van Gogh's "The Starry Night," Director Pan continued, “we do want to create a Taiwanese digital version of the paintings by these senior artists in the hope that the unique Taiwan colors can be seen over the world.

Professor Francis Li pointed out that 17 paintings by 9 artists were all projected onto a 4K large screen and presented an immersive experience for the viewers in this “In Quest for Taiwan's Palette" exhibition. As he further explained, the sequence of this exhibition is arranged “from sunrise to sunset,” and “each painting is made into an animated virtual reality in which people, ships, lake waters and other scenes become lively moving landscapes.” Take Chi-chun Liao’s " Lake Bi-Tan " as an example, the originally silent and static lake surface starts to move rhythmically as the wind gently blows in the video. The viewers are invited to go into the painting as if they were rowing the boat on the lake.

Professor Kai-Chun Hou mentioned that the viewers can see the oceanic beauty of Southern Taiwan with its amazing colors and contours in Bai-shuei Ma’s “Southern Coast.” Through the dynamic visual computing and lens processing, this painting presents an overwhelming virtual experience for the viewers to enjoy the breeze and the lapping sounds of waves in the beautiful seacoast of southern Taiwan.

This exhibition is an innovative cooperation between Museum of Modern Art and the College of Creative Design, and the team members under the supervision of professor Francis Li and professor Kai-Chun Hou from the Department of Digital Media Design, include Yu-tong Chen, Chi-lei Po, Kui-yuan Lin, Endo Taku, Ruo-Tzu Du and others. The piano soundtrack is a Taiwanese folk song performed by professor Jian-yu Lai from the Department of Digital Media Design.p>

Using the latest visual technology, this animated exhibition “re-presents” the natural scenes of Taiwan as they are seen in the eyes of Taiwanese artists from the early 1930s to the 1990s. This exhibition will be open until June 5, 2022. Do not miss this rare opportunity to experience virtually the beauty of early Taiwan.