2020 · Installation, furniture, vinyl on wall, UHD video and sound 900 × 400 × 500 cm Presented in SAD School of Artists Development, Cheongju Art Studio Later single-channel video version, 2023, approximately 5 minutes
Under the name SAD Art Rental, a television home-shopping set becomes a showroom for artworks. Presenters introduce art through the familiar promises of shopping television: special offers, convenient services and the transformation of an ordinary room into a gallery.
The installation brings the sales set into the exhibition space. Furniture, display screens, artworks and the blue studio backdrop place visitors between an art exhibition and a commercial broadcast, extending SAD’s fictional professional training programme into the promotion and rental of art.
Solo Exhibition at Oi!, Hong Kong, 1 Sep 2023 – 7 Jan 2024
In my recent project “SAD Kitchen: Oi! Guide – A Comfort Food Journey,” I utilized 3D printed objects, 3D scanning, animation, wall vinyl, printed matters and installation art to transform the Oi! Warehouse into a multi-sensory “kitchen.” This interactive space invites visitors to explore personal emotions and communal bonds through a site-specific game. Hidden psychological test questions were integrated into the 3D objects and animated features, encouraging self-reflection. Visitors received a personalized “Comfort Food Guide,” pointing them to local dishes in the North Point community. My art aims to use food—and digital media—as vehicles for social and cultural construction, connecting people, places, and stories.
Coordinator. Vanessa Lai
Coordinator in Korea. Hye Kyoung Kwon
Graphic Design & Art Direction. Heesun Seo, Chris Chan @ Studio Hik
Art Technician. Damon Lee, Ting Lap Tak, Tse Chun Sing, Xiao Wen Yan, Yip Kin Bon
Solo exhibition · Gallery Chosun, Seoul 6–29 November 2024
Department of Bread turns a school’s promise of training into a question about who defines achievement. Bread-making becomes a way to examine the demands placed on artists: credentials, assessments and externally approved results can take priority over curiosity, creativity and learning.
The fictional SAD school began in 2019. This department draws on my experience as both artist and educator, using familiar exercises and institutional language to make those pressures tangible.
Exercises in validation
Flourglass asks participants to practise an unnecessary skill, exposing how arbitrary a test of achievement can be. Shape and Score Clinic directs attention towards precision and prescribed standards, questioning what gets lost when conformity becomes the measure of learning.
In Stretch, ordinary bread-making gestures become exaggerated poses. Their extravagance echoes the spectacle through which institutions present their authority.
These exercises leave room for failure against an external standard. They ask whether participation, persistence and the desire to learn can matter even when they do not produce a certificate or a successful result.
FUSE Artist Residency: Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening
Supported by Hong Kong Arts Development Council
at Videotage, Hong Kong
2 Feb – 11 Mar 2018
‘Through slow-moving videos, images, and objects that are oft missed, Fong creates an encounter with the everyday in a controlled environment to allow the visitor to be with the urban in a different way. Many of the images are personal to Fong, and he brings in three textual perspectives (including this one) to obscure this narrative of his memories, opening them up to be shared. Bringing in media art theory into more traditional image-making practices, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening employs a light touch in a grand gesture toward a place where we can choose to be still.’
– Excerpt from Hera Chan’s text, The Freedom To Be Still
At the entrance, visitor picks up one of the catalogues and misses out the two others which look seemingly identical. In fact, each catalogue contains a different text that guides the visitor to an alternative experience of the same exhibition.
參觀者在展覽入口拿起其中一本場刊，錯過了貌似完全相同的另外兩本。 實際上 ， 每本場刊內有不同的文本，引導觀眾在同一個展覽裏經歷不同的體驗。
Digital print on paper, A5, 32 pages, 3 in a set, 2018
紙上數碼打印, A5, 32 頁, 3本1組, 2018
Dye sublimation print on voile, 140 cm x 260 cm, 2 in a set, 2018
透明紗上熱昇華印刷, 140 米 x 260 厘米, 2件1組, 2018
Silas FONG is interested in our struggle to remain calm and focused in an urban environment flooded with information. He often explores this problem with the help of found objects drawn from the world of technology. The video “Focus Test”, for example, consists of a series of tests charts for cameras. Their geometrical patterns, designed to determine the focusing ability of optical lenses, are equally challenging to the human eye. FONG’s fascination with test patterns is also evident in “Nozzle Check/Head Alignment”, a printout whose original purpose was to verify the proper function of a printer. Its fragile array of colour fields and lines is a constant reminder of how little it takes to become misadjusted, for both machines and humans.
Solo Exhibition
Hong-ti Art Center, Busan
25 Nov 2016– 16 Dec 2016
Artist Statement
Time is always not enough, but it is only true when we have things to do. Artist residency is an experience of time travel. Once you step into another culture, far away from your own. Suddenly you realize that you have to learn from the very beginning, from the basic understanding of daily life. It recalls memories of childhood, of youth and of future. Nothing is necessary to be done. Just stay in the studio, which is very spacious compared to that I had in Hong Kong, allows a lot of solitary thought to fill up until your back feel painful with the chair. The spacetime is open. ‘Time is an illusion.’ – Albert Einstein
After arriving Busan for a month, mostly I stay in the area nearby Hong-ti Art Center. It is an industrial area where things are made. There is not much traffic. In a foreign place, most fundamental elements become sentiments. The air, the light and shadows, the sea, the ambient sound, the fallen leaves and the sense of time seems dilated. To start from a personal perspective, I couldn’t help but reflect on my life in Hong Kong. I hope to describe the feeling of living here from Hong Kong.
One touristic attraction in my studio is definitely the sunlight. Here I could see the same ‘light drawing’ on the wall and the floor from 8am to 3:30pm in my studio. Outside there are different trees and plants filling up the window scene. It is somehow rare in Hong Kong, at least in my neighbourhood. It might sound awkward to you, but the residential life in Hong Kong are mostly in a high-rise, far off the ground. Still, the windows are blocked by the other buildings so you hardly see ‘light drawing’ on the walls and shadows of trees in your flat.
The sense of timelessness may not be a thing of Busan, but certainly for me in Hong-ti.
Download PDF 2015
Digital Print on Neobond® Synthetic Fibre Papers
A series of 20 books with different numbers of pages in A5 format in light-tight photo paper bags
Wooden shelf, 88 cm x 50 cm x 32 cm
Afternoon I
Flipping through the book.
Afternoon II
Flipping through the book.
Exhibited in
《after/image》Pure Art Foundation, Hong Kong, 2015
Photos taken by Ko Sin Tung
Collaborative work with Wendy Ng By I’m almost there. 幾乎做了 – An artist met a designer (or the other way round) for almost a year. Through their struggles and misunderstandings in communication, they felt the need to express their contradictory thoughts and awaited for the unexpected agreements.
2011 Spray paint, wall paint, wood, digital Video
Every day we write to each other, but what we know of us? I tell you ‘I’m thinking of you’ in all sort of ways, do you weigh the message same as I? The group I’m almost there. is taking this chance to bring awareness on the topic of mobile communication technology and its impact to us. Technology has the power to shape or construct our interpersonal relationships, yet the realisations on some of us are uncertain. How much effect do we actually pay to reach out for a person or to a society? It is believed that the quantity of communication offered by technology does not reflect its quality, while the perception and the necessity of communication technology is yet to define…
I’m almost there. would try to provide alternative perspectives on the consumption of intangible commodity.
Exhibited in 《Detour 2011: Useless》Former Married Police Quarter, Central, Hong Kong
2013- Video installation
HDV/ Color/ Sound
Complete statement and interview questions Silas Fong invites online stalker to suggest a target which he would approach and conduct video interview with. The stalkers set questions according to his knowledge to the stalkees. The stalkee was not told the identity of the stalker at any course. The stalkee then sits for an interview. During this interview the stalkee unavoidably created an image of the stalker and represented themselves with response to this imagination. The video was shown to the stalker after it is edited and commentary are done according to the discrepancy of the stalkee’s in fantasy and reality. In this work, audience is actually looking from the stalkers perspective while being aware of his/her mental activity according to the video.
—
Dear Stranger,
Are there people in your social networks that you don’t even know, that you have never seen, that you are not too familiar with. There maybe someone whom you are curious about, and have even watched for some time.
Have you ever thought of knowing them further without disclosing yourself?
If you have, we can help.
This is an invitation to enjoy our service.
We would help you to interview these strangers, and you would have the chance to comment on your strangers freely. We assure you that your identity would be kept confidential.
If you are intrigued, please kindly contact us by email via isp@silasfong.com.
Yours sincerely,
Silas Fong
Interview Service Provider
Exhibited in
《Sky ++》 Digital Community Art Exhibition, Goethe Institute, Hong Kong 2013
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Social network now allows us to get in and out of a stranger’s life without any difficulty. The greatest advantage of all is you can meet an enormous crowd of strangers in no time. It might be incorrect to stalk a stranger’s life without notice. However, a stranger has clearly granted such permission once their photos, information and thought are uploaded to the public domain. Don’t feel guilty about your curiosity. It should be shared and talked as hobbies for pleasure. After all, aren’t we all curious to know more about that familiar stranger?
The Service
Interview Service Provider (ISP) makes the world more open while being able to keep people disconnected. Enjoy the excitement and being safe at the same time.
We now offer stalkers the opportunities to know more about a stranger further through social networks.
We would help a stalker to interview a desired stranger (stalkee). ISP professional conduct guarantees that the stalker’s identity be kept confidential by both parties (ISP and the stalker).
When a stalker agrees to participate, ISP would approach this stalkee to sit for a video interview.
ISP would ask for the stalkee’s permission. When granted, ISP asks the stalker to provide 10 questions and 1 message for the stalkee. One single rule applies – any question or message that potentially suggests the stalkers’ identity would not be entertained.
Both ISP and the stalker shall never disclose the identity of the stalker by any means.
The video would be roughly edited and shown to the stalker. The stalker proceeds to comment on the stalkee and the video (commentary) as written text with ISP guidance.
The commentary would be made according to stalkee’s behaviour, and the discrepancy between the stalker’s fantasy and reality. Therefore the stalker is required to comment on the video in general but not just the stalkee.
After the final editing and adjustment by ISP, the interviews would be released in selected public occasions as a form of moving image. It would include the video interviews, the recorded speech of the stalkee and commentaries as subtitle by stalkers.
We would not disclose the stalkee’s response to the stalker’s message to any party.
It is ISP’s professional endeavor to satisfy any stalker’s curiosity and keep the stalkee’s curiosity ravenous.
