Golden City 藝術裝置 by Arlene Sun is a highly esteemed winner of the very prestigious 2020 A' Design Award 鐵獎 in 美術設計 Competition Category.

鐵美術· 2020

Golden City 藝術裝置

by Arlene Sun

Client: Spdl Design Lab

A' Design Award 鐵獎 Winner in 美術 Category

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Verified Award Winner

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Colors

The Design

About Golden City 藝術裝置

《黃金城市》係一件用棄置電腦零件製成嘅混合媒材藝術裝置。作品尺寸為30x30吋，結合咗畫布上嘅抽象丙烯顏料同電子廢料、金屬鍍層、燈光效果以及Arduino控制器。損壞嘅零件係從廢料堆中收集回來，並非經過修復，而係被放置於一個全新嘅語境當中。金色嘅表面賦予呢啲零件第二次生命，令佢哋成為引人注目嘅物件。呢件作品旨在提高大眾對電子廢料嘅關注，並質疑事物價值嘅賦予方式。

The Recognition

About the A' Design Award 鐵獎

Golden City 藝術裝置是 A' Design Award 鐵獎得主，這是授予滿足人們對設計精良的創作所期待的專業與工業要求的優良設計的聲望認可。鐵獎得主展現出其創作者的高超技藝、高度專業化、專家級的理解力和創造能力。預計Golden City 藝術裝置將成為一件備受推崇、令人欽佩且被珍愛的創作，既實用又創新。這件贏得 A' Design Award 鐵獎的設計整合了行業最佳實踐，並擁有與專業知識和才華相結合的稱職技術特性。Golden City 藝術裝置因其嚴謹而受到尊重，旨在提供有助於讓世界變得更美好的生活品質改善。

Behind the Design

Press Kit

Credits, team members and technical details provided by the designer.

Unique Properties: When new technology comes out we purchase the new and discard the old. What is the the value of those discarded technologies? Is it garbage? And should be buried in the landfill. Or does it still have value ? What is the environmental cost of land-filling those devices? These question inspired me to create Golden City with used land-filled computer parts. I want ignite people's environmental consciousness by given a new life to those discarded parts. The Golden Life.
Dimensions & Packaging: Abstract acrylic and mixed media on canvas 30'' × 30''
Tags: Abstract Acrylic, Mixed Media, Installation Art, Exhibition, Sustainable Design, Electronic Wastes, Green Design, Golden City
Production Technology: Acrylic, Electronic Waste, Metallic Coatings, Arduino, Lighting
Design Challenge: How can I use it to catch up all the attention from my audience? Is the project unique, creative and imaginative? Does it offer a new and ground-breaking value proposition in the social impact sector?
Research: In this era of digitally, filled with virtual objects and digital models, we still hold the old commitment to things. This commitment is reflected in, for example, our preference for materializing concepts – whether it is an abstract theory, a comic character, or a digital image, we want to turn the abstract doctrine into a metal breast-pin on the chest, materializing the comic character into a doll, printing digital images into files or photos. In any case, we hope that we can turn non-objects into objects - those that can be grasped with and touchable by our hands. We believe that only the objected things are real - after all, from various aspects, we are also things – in one way or another, our attachments and detachments toward each other and the world will end up with things. Thus comes our pathological roots of fetishism.

In a world of things, people have long believed that the shape of things has a deeper meaning. This conviction gave birth to the so-called Metaphysics – just as in the long Neolithic era, people once had a superstitious obsession with the metal buried in the ground: people treated metal as another form of human being, and excavating them from the ground would interrupt the process of cocooning in the earth. A vast body of knowledge is built upon this belief - Alchemy. The alchemists' mission is not to extract gold from the metal, but to eventually combine the metal with the flesh, and to achieving the final refinement of Philosopher's Stone—the object that allows everything freely transforming its form through it.

Would art be the Philosopher’s Stone? Or would our computers and smartphones be? While there seems to be no conclusive answer for this pursuit, every device around us is transforming the form of some things in its way. This pursuit has expanded into a series of questions under the hands of the artist Arlene Sun: How to turn a panel painting into a sculpture- into a devise that phonate – into a device that interacts – into a device that acts. As she chooses to scavenge the damaged electronic components from the waste pile, these 'problematic' electronic components were fixed in her hands, not by repairing but shifting into a different context than they used to be located. The devices are transformed from e-wastes into vital parts of works. The value of these devices has grown a thousand folds simply because of relocating into a different context – isn't this a way of forging gold from metal?

At this moment, these electronic components are framed into the frame, turning into the target of our vision in this space. Their another layer of meaning has been excavated in such away. Doesn't our own meaning usually come from the things around us? When we talk about meaning, don’t things always be the strongest bonds between us and our destiny? So What is our commitment to things? What do we mean when we intervene the fate of things? Who is the strong definer of whose fate? Is there a deep oriental gesture embedded in this cherished of things? Artist Arlene Sun responds to these questions via the works exhibiting here.
Inspiration: How to understand Value? I thought the value generate only when you care about it. The thought related me to started to think about the Value between technology and ecology. Nowadays, AI already into our life everywhere, but we still need to evoke much more attentions on solution of the environment. In the future the smart life is not just wear a VR glasses to escape from the reality. We are not able to live in a virtual world with environmental pollution, electronic wastes, abandoned resource.How do we determine value?
Project Duration: The project started in December 2017 in New York and finished in April 2019 in New York, and was exhibited in Novado Gallery in April-May 2019.
Operation Flow: Curator: Dandi Gu, Academic Advisor: Zi
Patents: Arlenesun Solo Mixed Media Art Exhibition
Team Members: Curator: Dandi Gu Academic Advisor: Zi
Image Credits: Image / Photo: Echo, Dylan