Artist and DJ Chooc Ly Tan questions the way we perceive our world, by inventing eccentric modes of enquiry, and evoking alternate realities.
My practice sets out to investigate systems or tools that are used to understand the world, such as logic or physics, but to subvert them to suggest new and unconventional visions of reality.
As an inquisitive and socio-politically engaged artist, I am interested in occupying the space of the discourse, that is also beyond the art world. My research and art practice is situated at the intersections between art, science, politics and technology. I have worked with musicians, theoretical physicists, and writers to develop inter-disciplinary projects.
Recently my work has been shown at Minsheng Art Museum, Beijing, China; Chale Wote Festival, Accra, Ghana; Maraya Art Centre, Sharjah, UAE; Festival of Ideas, Cambridge, UK; Neutral Ground Contemporary Art Forum, Canada; CCA, Glasgow; Fuso International Video Art Festival, Lisbon, Portugal; Milano Film Festival, Italy. Recent art residencies includes CCA/EduHK, Hong Kong, and The Inhabitation at the Boghossian Foundation, Brussels.
Crepuscular Dreams of (Dis-) Alienation
HD Video / 15:00 min / 2018
A pulsating experimental documentary film, generated through research and speculative thinking on the ongoing aspect of colonisation and my own personal account as an Afro-Asian child of the diaspora. This short audio-visual collage presents interviews of people from today’s generation, whose parents suffered more directly from colonisation and imperialism. With a grand optimism, interviewees offer their takes on the aftermath of (neo) colonisation covering issues such as prejudice, exotism and pop culture.
In Space There Is No Up Or Down
HD Video / 05:21 min / 2012
What would a world devoid of physical laws, such as gravity and frames of references, such as geometry and time be like? Sitting outside of time would enable us to witness past, present and future all at once at the same moment and location. This film develops an empirical and existential conversation with the viewer.
New Materials in the Reading of the World
SD (Standard digital) / 05:20 min / 2011
The video announces the emergence of Oubliism, a concept that consists of the exploration of new possibilities to be found in the chaos of the universe. In ‘New Materials in the Reading of the World’, spoken word and other sounds merge with imagery, on the basis of their divergence. The result is an atonal and poetic composition, with created and found audio visual materials. Oubliism proposes a rethink of the current system which is bound by physical laws and humane concerns. This movement distances itself from reality and aspires to new cosmic and revolutionary ideals.