Retainers of Anarchy
2017
algorithmic animation sequence
5-channel projection, 6-channel audio
340 x 2418 cm (Pixel dims: 1080 x 7680)
Edition of 4 AP 1

Image/Sound Programming: Remy Siu
Animation: Sitji Chou, Roxanne Zagar, Kodai Yanagawa, Kerel Alaas, Amelia Earhart

Retainers of Anarchy is a solo exhibition featuring new work from Howie Tsui that considers wuxia as a narrative tool for resistance. Wuxia, a traditional form of martial arts literature that expanded into 20th century popular film and television, was created out of narratives and characters often from lower social classes that uphold chivalric ideals against oppressive forces during unstable times. The genre was placed under heavy censorship for fear of arousing anti-government sentiment, however, practitioners advanced the form in Hong Kong making it one of the most popular genres of Chinese fiction. The title work, Retainers of Anarchy, is a 25-metre scroll-like video installation that references life during the song dynasty (960–1279 CE), but undermines its idealized portraiture of social cohesion by setting the narrative in Kowloon’s notorious walled city—an ungoverned tenement of disenfranchised refugees in Hong Kong which was demolished in 1994.

Hei Gung Deviation (走火入魔)
2017
interactive sound sculpture, wood, motion sensors, Arduino circuit board, solenoids, wooden knockers, pyrography
195.5 x 122.5 x 121.9 cm

An interactive sound sculpture in the form of a wooden kung fu training dummy (mook jong) that catalogues martial arts techniques based largely on Hong Kong novelist Jin Yong's The Condor Trilogy. Five motion sensors each trigger a mechanical percussive pattern produced by solenoids and wooden knockers. Based on Steve Reich's Music for Pieces of Wood, the work references both the wooden fish used in Buddhist mantras and the clacking produced when a martial artist trains on a wooden dummy. Akin to tattoos, the pyrographic etchings on the sculpture highlight the variety of clans and sects that inhabit the wuxia universe, serving as a graphic taxonomy of the tribes within the genre. The work conjures a meditative space that alludes to hermetic chambers frequently portrayed in wuxia (enclosed spaces for internal training and spiritual enlightenment); and draws parallels to an isolated artistic studio practice.