Nam June Paik Art Center and FACT (Foundation for Art and Creative Technology) have participated in the Artists’ Residency Program for UK/Korea 2017-2018 with the theme ‘Creative Future’ to promote emerging artists based in the United Kingdom and South Korea. Nam June Paik Art Center released an open call to select a UK young artist last September and ‘Chris Shen’ was selected as a final winner through a jury process last October. The artist has been participating in the Residency Program of Nam June Paik Art Center since December, 2017. We are pleased to have his exhibition Lume (Auto) at Mezzanine, Nam June Paik Art Center from January 30 to March 25, 2018.

Operating at the intersection between technology and art, Chris Shen has conducted research on the characteristics of the instruments and devices and explored his own artistic methodologies. The exhibition Lume (Auto) on display at the Nam June Paik Art Center shows an interminable interaction of objects, using automatic security lights, based on a chain reaction of lights operated by neighboring sensors. Shen explains it as an ‘unpredictable propagation as well as binary ripples of light.’ The artist creates a new way of communication or interaction, and presents a series of open ended questions so that the viewers can discover their own meaning through the works, whilst examining the effects of complex structures of devices or instruments on our everyday life.

_{A handful of types of elementary particles, which vibrate and fluctuate constantly between existence and nonexistence and swarm in space, even when it seems that there is nothing there, combine together to infinity like the letters of a cosmic alphabet to tell the immense history of galaxies…}
– Carlo Rovelli, Seven Brief Lessons on Physics.

Artist
Chris Shen (Born in 1988, UK) graduated from UAL: London College of Communication. With solo exhibitions in London and Hong Kong, as well as group exhibitions including: Victoria & Albert Museum (UK), Museum of London (UK), Eyebeam (USA). He has participated in residency programs at Videotage (Hong Kong), Pier-2 Art Center (Taiwan) and MMCA (Korea).

_{Operating at the intersection between technology and art, Chris Shen pursues to re-imagine the relationships of technology and communication. Utilizing basic principles of how technology works to highlight the ways we use them and the impact these complex tools have on our everyday life.}
– Artist Note

Nam June Paik Art Center
Opened to the public in 2008, the Nam June Paik Art Center aspires to revive the generosity, criticality and interdisciplinary nature characteristic of both Nam June Paik’s work and life. To fulfill the artist’s wish building ‘the house where the spirit of Nam June Paik lives on’, Nam June Paik Art Center develops creative and critical programs on the artist.

FACT(Foundation for Art and Creative Technology)
FACT (Foundation for Art and Creative Technology) is the UK’s leading media arts centre, based in Liverpool, focusing on bringing people, art and technology together. FACT harnesses the power of creative technology to inspire and enrich lives through a wide ranging program of exhibitions, research and innovation, and community-led projects. Its award-winning building houses three galleries, a café, bar and four cinema screens. Since the organisation was founded in 1988 (previously called Moviola), it has commissioned and presented over 350 new media and digital artworks from artists including Pipilotti Rist, Nam June Paik, Krzysztof Wodiczko, Ryoichi Kurokawa, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, and Isaac Julien.

www.fact.co.uk