Shih Chieh Huang
Shih Chieh Huang creates installations that merge common, store-bought artificial materials and dissected electronics with air and water to create interactive organic living environments and sculptures. In his creative process, he takes common, everyday items and combines selected parts to form new entities. They then come to life as Huang implements a dynamic system of circulation of water, electricity and air.
Having first worked on two-dimensional works, Huang quickly evolved to three-dimensional installations, inspired by everyday household electronic devices. He studied Fine Arts at the School of Visual Arts in New York where he starting learning about physical computing and robotics, which took him a step further in the creation of his artificial organic environments.
He uses mass-produced home electronics and industrial products as creative materials to render a fabulous world of technology. Home appliances seem to have been dismantled and reassembled in a state of emergency, yet the viewer can still discern their original appearance as well as their alteration. Like a deft handyman, Shih Chieh Huang assembles a scientific edition of bricolage. Under Huang’s treatment, these products, like Frankensteinian creatures assembled from lifeless components, begin to have their own organic life and to reproduce themselves.
Huang’s works are like the results of a mad scientist’s experiments, revealing odd connections among technology, nature and the urban environment. Yet his works do not make use of high-tech products; rather, by using low-tech consumer goods, he more ably reflects contemporary life. His interactive installations use collected objects that are reassembled in a way that subverts their intended function and causes the viewer to look anew at the familiar materials that surround us.