Fangas Nayaw

Curatorial Perspective

Fangas Nayaw works across different fields, including new media, drama, and dance, with an emphasis on the continuation and inheritance of indigenous tradition in contemporary society influenced by globalization. His four-channel video, La XXX Punk, converts a theatrical production into a video installation, envisioning that Taiwan’s indigenous peoples have disappeared in a parallel universe. In La XXX Punk, a counter-factual model is used to fabricate the future music and dance culture of the Amis people. With few resources, how can the methods for passing on the Amis age organization (for apportioning responsibilities) adapt to change? This work reconstructs the Amis music and dance culture with fictional ideas through the futurism of the “indigenous punk.” The work also explores the Amis tradition of dividing communal responsibilities according to a hierarchical system based on age, along with ethnic stereotyping encountered by urbanized indigenous youths, their rebellious spirit, and the artist’s reflection on and response to the contemporaneity of the indigenous presence. Furthermore, for this biennial, the artist has conceived a performance, using the lost place of the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts. The site-specific performance project, titled Demi-Ami Cladogenesis, is a long durational performance, which starts from the body, temporality, and bodily perception in construction projects to portray the chaotic situations behind the seemingly orderly modern governance. There are six stages of Demi-Ami Cladogenesis. In these ongoing events, the performers’ bodies collide with the institutional mechanisms, both the tangible and intangible ones. Through the physical movements of repeatedly traversing through the boundary of the museum’s premises, and the liveness of the performance to correspond to different schedules to imagine the possibility of lost spaces, the audience are once again reminded of a crucial characteristic of contemporary art, which is to challenge the institution. Thus, the work not only echoes the dialogue between the history of technics and urban space, but also “revitalizes” the existing and much rigidified discipline imposed upon us through hardware, while investigating the negotiation between humans and sites, as well as cultural identity and spatial governance.

Creation Description

In a parallel universe, Taiwan’s indigenous peoples have disappeared. What clues will we have to recall these cultures? In La XXX Punk, a counter-factual model is used to fabricate the future music and dance culture of the Amis tribe. With few resources, how can the methods for passing on the age organization (for apportioning responsibilities) of the Amis tribe adapt to change? In the future, it is possible that there will be an Amis age organization “La XXX Punk.”

“La XXX Punk” basic law:

• All people are considered first inhabitants.
• That which is factual is not based on evidence or truth. It is about trust and perception.
• The future takes precedence over the past.
• In all matters and for all construction projects, additive and multiplication strategies are adopted and construction is not based on destruction.
• Time does not extend linearly but, rather, in multiple concentric circles.
• All species can co-parent and reproduce. Processes and results require intervention of the consciousness of the other.
• When indigenous punk is openly shared, other punk groups exist simultaneously.
• There is no health care responsibility other than one’s own immunity.
• There is to be autonomous development of communication skills that do not rely on language.
• The responsibility for one’s own actions is shared by other punks. Indigenous punks are exempt from the blame of other punk groups.

“La XXX Punk” legislative process:

With gratitude to frequently disappearing individuals, only alcohol yeast remains. That which is closest perceives and scatters that which is farthest. At this moment, our appearances, which are different, although of the same origin, are in moon punk. When this message is in a language that you can read, alcohol yeast calls on multiple channels. If the above-mentioned symbols appear, the moon is punking your yeast and everything is in irreversible coexistence.

This law comes into effect on the date of promulgation.