Metaphysics

5.1
Divinity

Yaode JN I often feel there’s a duality in aesthetic experience. When the artist’s pain and struggle overlaps with my own lived experiences, the act of viewing becomes a kind of response to the work—almost a dialogue with the creator. Perception isn’t just about passively receiving emotion; it also generates a personal interpretation. In that sense, the creator’s struggle can carry a religious kind of divinity. You see this inFlanch》’s self-titled album, or FKA Twigs’ Magdalene—both hold that pain and devotion Hsing-Kai mentioned earlier.

PENG Hsing-Kai I get the sense that in these works, the artist’s will and desire are almost dissociated, like in SBTRKT’s Wonder Where We Land, where a second self submits to something higher—and by Save Yourself, even his own symbols are “subtracted”, leading to a state of egolessness. But whether that’s the same as religious divinity... I’m not sure.

LIU Yu-Ju Isn’t the sense of mystery itself also a kind of divinity? It feels like something from beyond this world. And doesn’t that “unknown” feel similar to the “egolessness” you were talking about? I’m drawn to the unknown—I’m a bit superstitious when it comes to mysticism. Could this fascination with mystery be a form of the divine?

PENG Hsing-Kai What you’re describing sounds closer to what Immanuel Kant called the “sublime”—that overwhelming, almost terrifying feeling when the spirit confronts the infinite and forgets the self. But the kind of egolessness tied to devotion feels more intentional, like Buddha embracing suffering to reach transcendence. Kant’s version is a passive aesthetic experience—I can’t think of a way his theory could explain egolessness as active surrender.

Yaode JN I think Flanch really captures the ritualistic spirit of religion—fasting, bleeding altars, followers deliberately enduring pain to reach a shared spiritual state. Even as a bystander, it’s terrifying and overwhelming, because you’re witnessing people destroy themselves for a belief.

PENG Hsing-Kai Sorry, this just made me picture something unintentionally funny. If you look at it from a sensory theory perspective, a cathedral is designed to make people feel awe. But these days, all I can picture are tourists taking selfies in front of a pipe organ. These sensory cues used to condition behaviour, but their power is fading as time goes on. In a way, it shows we're no longer as easily moved by visual stimuli.

Yaode JN Exactly. People’s thresholds are higher now. Even without formal training, if someone walks slowly through a church in a cloak holding a candle, you’d still feel the solemnity—or the creepiness. But today, our perception doesn’t always catch those signals. We’re so used to filtering everything through memes that the “sacred” loses its impact. Still, I think that primal sense of awe will return in new forms, as we continue to explore the unknown and the supernatural.

PENG Hsing-Kai In the past, people idolised figures and treated them almost like religious icons. That kind of mass devotion feels rare now. Individual thought has replaced group values as the centre of judgement. And with the rise of individualism, the concept of “God” has splintered—more people are atheists or materialists.

So, do you think “divinity” is still a meaningful concept for artists to explore? Or has the disappearance of divinity become irreversible?

Yaode JN Why wouldn’t it matter? Isn’t humanity’s urge to explore the unknown an essential part of who we are?

LIU Yu-Ju I think being able to perceive something greater or more profound is what makes creating so compelling. That awareness of the divine is what drives us to keep going.

Andy Chen I read this book recently—The Bonobo and the Atheist. The author looks at the link between religion and animal behaviour. Frans de Waal discusses how some parts of Scandinavia attempted to remove religion entirely, to see how it would affect society. Turns out, not much changed—whether it was ecology, public safety, or social behaviour. And interestingly, even animals show signs of “sacred behaviour”.

So maybe the pursuit of the divine isn’t rooted in religion, but in something more instinctual. He suggests that our moral sense—our sense of right and wrong—might come from the survival norms of social animals. Religion rituals may have amplified these instincts, but at the core, maybe they’re just hardwired into our genes.

5.2
The Ideal Form

Andy Chen So... what do you think is the meaning of creating? Like taking a shit—you go when you need to go.

LIU Yu-Ju Like taking a shit—you go when you need to go.

Yaode JN Do you get constipated?

LIU Yu-Ju If so, I just do something else.

Andy Chen I see creation as a way of experiencing and understanding the world. Though it’s true—some artists really have compared it to taking a shit.

LIU Yu-Ju Aren’t any of you worried your work will be replaced by AI?

Yaode JN If it happens, it happens. Might actually be a good thing. It forces creators to rethink meaning—and for the public, it’s just a shift in style.

PENG Hsing-Kai If AI evolves to make choices and develop its own sense of beauty, it’ll be humanity’s greatest creation—we’ll have built something more brilliant than ourselves.

LIU Yu-Ju Right, maybe I should switch to new media.

PENG Hsing-Kai You’ll be replaced even faster in new media.

LIU Yu-Ju What about fine art? I don’t know... I’m lost.

Yaode JN Not again.

PENG Hsing-Kai I work with a photographer who’s super forgetful. He says all his memories live with his friends. That made me think of the Information Island—some knowledge only exists within specific media or is processed by certain communities. We're still the ones who hold knowledge and memory. AI just becomes one of the "islands" storing some of it. But if creators obsess over whether their work will be mimicked by AI, they’ll have to accept this: they might never be remembered by history at all.

Andy Chen People are too pessimistic about AI. I think it’s taste and selection that determine whether a piece gets replaced—not the tools.

PENG Hsing-Kai The “ideal form” is from Plato. He said what we see is just a shadow of reality. He used the cave metaphor—humans sitting in a circle, backs to a fire, only able to see the shadows on the cave wall. They mistake the shadows for reality, never knowing what’s outside. The real “form” exists beyond that.

So, what’s your ideal form? How do you approach it—and express it through your work?

Andy Chen I’m not sure I fully understand it, but I think mine might be “play”. Not games, but the instinct to play—something humans have always done. I’m trying to channel that instinct into my work.

LIU Yu-Ju I’m still not entirely sure either. But one thing I do know—if I stop looking for it, I probably won’t keep making work. For me, creating is about the search itself.

PENG Hsing-Kai My ideal form might be an unplaceable fear. Like in The Three-Body Problem, there’s this line: “We will destroy your science.” That hit me. It made me realise how deeply we fear stagnation. Our belief in endless progress is an illusion that blinds us to the need for fear.

The only honest line I’ve ever heard about art and design is: “Creation is for the self.” If something’s never existed, that’s exactly why it should be made. At the same time, I believe everyone’s a unique being—so exploring the self has value in the larger story of humanity. If I didn’t believe that, I wouldn’t feel alive. Even if, in the end, it’s no different from being a troll online just to prove you exist.

Yaode JN My ideal form... honestly, I don’t know. Maybe it’s a kind of “void processor”, which has only made my sense of meaninglessness grow. A lot of things just don’t feel important anymore. The things you care about—others probably don’t. So does that mean I care what other people think? Or should I just focus on what matters to me?

Lately, I’ve realised there’s no need to convince anyone to care about the same things I do. But the moment I accept that, I start to feel helpless. If everything’s just down to personal choice—then what’s still worth doing?

LIU Yu-Ju We’re all lost, together.

Yaode JN Fine by me.