Cheng Daoyuan is a multimedia artist devoted to the examination of the concomitance and rivalry between the self and the nature of existence through experimental sound, image, and installation works. This examination has been at the core of Cheng’s art practice, which involves a philosophical exercise that he describes by saying “completeness is nothingness, and the end is the beginning.”
Cheng has been active in Taiwan’s experimental sound scene since 2015. In 2019, he performed in Tokyo (Japan) and released his debut physical album Apeiron. His sound works have been released on various labels and platforms in the form of compilations, remixes, collaboration and programs, also been mentioned in international media such as the WIRE and the QUIETUS. In 2020, he was invited to perform at MUTEK: Nexus Experience. In recent years, he focused on the development of multi-channel sound works, which have been presented in National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts and Taiwan Contemporary Culture Lab.
In 2022, he was selected as the resident of the Sound-Off Project in Taiwan Sound Lab, C-LAB, presented the 49.4-channel multimedia work DOOME: Null Gods. In the same year, he participated in the Taiwan Biennial with a new multi-channel and video installation work Where End Is Silent.
“Just as in Hardy’s Ivy Wife, the conclusion is: ““God bless you, honest William! – Farewell, dear Amelia – Grow green again, tender little parasite, round the rugged old oak to which you cling!” In both examples above, the parasite is clearly an alien self that is both dependent and destructive. It enters into a self-sufficient family to eat of the host and drink of the host, while simultaneously killing the host.”
-YANG, Dachun Deconstruction
Cheng Daoyuan will present the corresponding concepts and doomsday aesthetics that are pervasive in his work in an attempt to eliminate and amalgamate the master-slave relationship between sound and culture. Destruction and reconstruction, eschewing the consciousness rooted in genres and trends and frameworks auxiliary to civilization to linger in a space that contains only sound and the self.
Note: The quote mentioned above by Yang Dachun is taken from Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray.
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