Extrastellar Evaluations III: Entropy: 25800 | 6 January - 14 February 2018

Doomsday prophecies have emerged since ancient times, from the Book of Revelation of the Bible, to the Millennium Crisis, to the 2012 Mayan Apocalypse. The end of days seems imminent, yet it never comes. What is the purpose of the doomsday prophecy — to serve as a warning to the world or as a means of manipulation? And what awaits us in the future — another cycle or an infinite wasteland?

TKG⁺ Projects is pleased to present Extrastellar Evaluations III: Entropy: 25800 — Yin-Ju Chen Solo Exhibition. As a continuation and the final chapter of the “Extrastellar Evaluations” series that first began in 2016, this exhibition contemplates human civilization and humanity’s future through an investigation of space physics, extraterrestrial myths, and cosmography.

Yin-Ju Chen is known for her occultist approach to the imagination of the future using hypotheses and prophecies founded upon a choreography of fragments of history, as well as mass media imagery and information. Extrastellar Evaluations III: Entropy: 25800 is another attempt by the artist to reveal when exactly Doomsday takes place, through an investigation of the Great Year, or the period of one complete cycle of the spring equinox around the ecliptic. A cycle of the Great Year is 25,800 years, a number that has been derived not only from NASA’s calculations, but also from several ancient mythologies and legends. The artist further adapts the notion of "entropy" [1] from the second law of thermodynamics, and connects it to the avarice and belligerence of human nature. Interspersed in the video are the narrations of a non-human intelligence named “Ra” concerning The Law of One [2] ; everything is the distortion of the one infinite Creator. [3] Intercut with historical images of wars and disasters, the video shows chaos propelling the universe into a state of disorder, leading to the ultimate cosmic destiny that many scientists and astronomers have predicted: the universe will inevitably burn out and be transformed.

The doomsday narrative unfolds in this exhibition through a seemingly logical scientific perspective, urging the viewer to see the reality that confronts humankind. Just as the non-human intelligence Ra elucidates the philosophy of Taiyi: the origin of all beings is the universe; human behavior and civilization as an unseen hand shapes the universe. This notion resonates with the Tao Te Ching, “Man models the Way of earth; earth models the Way of heaven; heaven models the Way of Tao; Tao models the Way of nature.”

As doomsday draws near, will humanity realize the catastrophic consequences of its actions and attain the final awakening before it is too late?

Yin-Ju Chen

received her master’s degree from the San Francisco Art Institute in 2003. She is engaged in a wide range of mediums from mixed media, painting, photographic print making, to performance art, while she focuses primarily on video. In the past few years her practice has been centered on the power structure in society, nationalism, and collective (un)consciousness. More recently space science, occultism, and her practice have coalesced into an examination of the relationship between the universe and humanity. The artist has exhibited extensively, including at the International Film Festival Rotterdam (2018, 2011); The South: An Art of Asking and Listening, Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts, Taiwan (2017); Biennale of Sydney (2016); Liverpool Biennial (2016); Forum Expanded at Berlin Film Festival (2016); Shanghai Biennale (2014); A Journal of the Plague Year, Para/Site, Hong Kong (2013–2014); Taipei Biennial (2012); European Media Art Festival (2011); Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain (2009); and International Documentary Festival Amsterdam (2008).

[1]The first law of thermodynamics is the law of conservation of energy, which states that the total energy of an isolated system in a given frame of reference remains constant. But this is not always true in real life. Rudolf Clausius, 19^th-century German physicist and mathematician, pointed out that heat can spontaneously flow from a material at a higher temperature to a material at a lower temperature, but the reverse is impossible. The parameter for the heat transfer rate in this process is “entropy,” which is irreversible and unpredictable. This leads to the second law of thermodynamics.

[2]The Law of One is a series of five books which chronicle the communications between four psychics and a non-human intelligence named Ra, in a total of 106 documents over a period of 16 years. A self-proclaimed entity of consciousness from an extraterrestrial civilization, Ra enunciates a sui generis philosophical system in these communications, named “Law of One.” Ra indicates that everything is the distortions of the one infinite Creator, that the origin of all beings is the universe, manifested in different aspects of human life, such as philosophy, religion, history, politics, ethics, cosmology, and supernatural phenomena.

[3]Similar to the philosophy of Taiyi(the Great Unity), the ancient name of the North Star, Taiyi was believed to be and worshipped as the highest God in Pre-Qing folk religion, equivalent to the Creator. The literati imbued Taiyi with a philosophical significance, reinterpreting it as Dao, an everlasting law, or the primal origin of the universe. The equivalent of Taiyi in ancient Western philosophy is “the One,” which denotes singularity, unity, infinitude, homogeneity, and the concept that “the One is one.” Plotinus, Neoplatonist philosopher of ancient Rome, posited that all beings were born out of the One, that the One is omnipresent, transcendental, the cause of all multiplicities, the Lord of all.

Extrastellar Evaluations III: Entropy: 25800: Yin-Ju Chen Solo Exhibition