The Authenticity of Contemporary Photography

The birth of an image is often arbitrary, yet the possibility of interpretation is never absent. The person behind the camera holds the power to manipulate both the captured scene and the angle of view, creating a dynamic of control over the viewer. Furthermore, camera lenses are now easily accessible to the general public. These phenomena have made it difficult for photography to be consistently recognised as a professional art form.

In this seminar, Manbo Key, recipient of the First Prize of the Taipei Fine Arts Award, explored the interplay between “reality” and “fiction” in photography. Drawing upon historical traces of Taiwan’s underground culture and transgender identity, he examined these themes through his long-term project Father’s Video Tapes. Key also addressed how personal life experiences can be processed and articulated through contemporary photographic practices.

Father’s Video Tapes is a project that Manbo Key has developed over more than a decade. Through photography, video recordings, objects, and various devices, the artist sought to trace, comprehend, and reconstruct the mysterious, distant—yet startlingly intimate—relationship between himself and his father. In the 1990s, he came across a collection of his father's self-recorded video tapes, through which he discovered his father’s sexual orientation. This revelation prompted a profound reconsideration of both personal and societal understandings of the role of the “father.” (Excerpt from Taipei Fine Arts Museum.)