I OWNED, A TONGUE

solo exhibition · 2024-05-25 – 2024-06-22
Ed Video Media Arts Centre, Guelph

catalogue ↗

I OWNED, A TONGUE is about hacking the alphabetic writing apparatus as a technology in an algorithmic narration of cybernetic feedback and data economies. In the exhibition, the software writes on its own, interfaces invite you to decipher and gesture, neon signs emit ringing sounds while scrolling antonym pairs, and speech voices are indigestible data that insist on unlearning. Six works of digital poetry, that are six modes of perceptual rerouting, synthesize unstable and untranslatable signifiers that confuse yet connect us. Meanings dangle in the collective dreams we are all in, where networked machines relay signals from the other side of reality. Lost tongues are found anew as contexts are displaced, detached, and divinated from their normalized mundane.

Learn more from the exhibition catalogue.

Xuan Ye: I OWNED, A TONGUE runs from May 25 – June 22, 2024 at the Ed Video Media Arts Centre, which is situated on the traditional lands of the Attawandaron, Anishinaabek, and Haudenosaunee Peoples and the treaty lands of the Mississaugas of the Credit. This exhibition is made possible with the exhibition assistance of the Ontario Arts Council. Special thanks to Maddie Lychek, Program Director, and Elia Morrison, Technical Director, of Ed Video for their invaluable organizational and technical supports.

Exhibition Essay: Mujie Li

Graphic Design: Xuan Ye