Fountain of Youth 2, 2021, Installation at Huxley-Parlour Gallery, London. Images Courtesy of Huxley-Parlour Gallery © 2021
Kara Chin, The Park is Gone, 2022
EPISODE 11: KARA CHIN
When imagining future scenarios of technology and AI, the spectre of dystopia is often summoned. In British-Singaporean artist Kara Chin’s work this habit is skewered by a keen sense of the absurd rendered through an outlandish bricolage materiality. Chin creates immersive installations that variously incorporate architectural forms, digital animations and ceramic friezes. These combine to create speculative futuristic scenarios in which, for example, sentient robots try to reanimate cryogenically frozen humans, but mistakenly interact with coffee urns.
Chin’s recent works have taken aim at transhumanist attempts to defeat death – a new frontier in capitalist encroachments on nature. Robot shrines to the undead perch precariously on office chairs, formally linking the banality of corporate culture with the transcendental. Other installations have variously examined the Subway sandwich assembly shot, Jurassic World as a future artefact of the industrial complex, and behind-the-scenes CGI processes in blockbuster movies. These themes demonstrate Chin’s interest in the ‘back-end’ of technology, often concealed by high concept, consumption, and slick mediation.
Chin’s work is shown as part of Episodes, an ongoing series of exhibitions featuring newly commissioned works by emergent artists.
BIOGRAPHY
Chin (b. 1994) has exhibited internationally at galleries and museums including: Humber Street Gallery, Hull, UK; The 8th International Triennial of Art and Ecology, Maribor, SI; BALTIC39, Newcastle, UK; South London Gallery, London, UK; ADM Gallery, Singapore; DKUK, London, UK; Gallery North, Newcastle, UK; Hatch, Paris, FR; CBS Gallery, Liverpool, UK; Tuesday to Friday, Valencia, ES; Science Museum, London, UK; APT Gallery, London, UK; Fieldworks, London, UK; Quench, Margate, UK; VITRINE, London, UK; VITRINE, Basel, UK; VITRINE, Digital; The Embassy Tea Gallery, London, UK; Subsidiary Projects, London, UK; Pineapple Black, Middlesbrough, UK; The Milton Gallery, London, UK; UCL Art Museum, London, UK; San Mei Gallery, London, UK; IMT Gallery, London, UK; Fold, London, UK; The Pallent House Gallery, London, UK; Off Site Project, Online; Huxley Parlour, London, UK.
Current exhibitions include the artist’s first exhibition in China ‘Splendour of the Sun’ at Galerie du Monde in Hong Kong (25 Feb 2023).
When imagining future scenarios of technology and AI, the spectre of dystopia is often summoned. In British-Singaporean artist Kara Chin’s work this habit is skewered by a keen sense of the absurd rendered through an outlandish bricolage materiality. Chin creates immersive installations that variously incorporate architectural forms, digital animations and ceramic friezes. These combine to create speculative futuristic scenarios in which, for example, sentient robots try to reanimate cryogenically frozen humans, but mistakenly interact with coffee urns.
Chin’s recent works have taken aim at transhumanist attempts to defeat death – a new frontier in capitalist encroachments on nature. Robot shrines to the undead perch precariously on office chairs, formally linking the banality of corporate culture with the transcendental. Other installations have variously examined the Subway sandwich assembly shot, Jurassic World as a future artefact of the industrial complex, and behind-the-scenes CGI processes in blockbuster movies. These themes demonstrate Chin’s interest in the ‘back-end’ of technology, often concealed by high concept, consumption, and slick mediation.
Chin’s work is shown as part of Episodes, an ongoing series of exhibitions featuring newly commissioned works by emergent artists.
BIOGRAPHY
Chin (b. 1994) has exhibited internationally at galleries and museums including: Humber Street Gallery, Hull, UK; The 8th International Triennial of Art and Ecology, Maribor, SI; BALTIC39, Newcastle, UK; South London Gallery, London, UK; ADM Gallery, Singapore; DKUK, London, UK; Gallery North, Newcastle, UK; Hatch, Paris, FR; CBS Gallery, Liverpool, UK; Tuesday to Friday, Valencia, ES; Science Museum, London, UK; APT Gallery, London, UK; Fieldworks, London, UK; Quench, Margate, UK; VITRINE, London, UK; VITRINE, Basel, UK; VITRINE, Digital; The Embassy Tea Gallery, London, UK; Subsidiary Projects, London, UK; Pineapple Black, Middlesbrough, UK; The Milton Gallery, London, UK; UCL Art Museum, London, UK; San Mei Gallery, London, UK; IMT Gallery, London, UK; Fold, London, UK; The Pallent House Gallery, London, UK; Off Site Project, Online; Huxley Parlour, London, UK.
Current exhibitions include the artist’s first exhibition in China ‘Splendour of the Sun’ at Galerie du Monde in Hong Kong (25 Feb 2023).
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