Last week in New York, Postmasters opened its debut presentation of the Chinese multimedia artist Chando Ao, “My I,” on view through January 22, 2022. Titled for Douglas Hofstadter and Daniel Dennett’s publication The Mind’s I, reflecting on the self and the soul, the show offers a landscape of tools created by the artist to activate the viewer’s senses and help them connect with their inner “I.”
Presenting his audience with a series of self-reflective objects, Ao invites onlookers to interact with creations that fall at an intersection of technology and the human experience. Crafted to confuse, inspire, disturb, and stimulate, the works allow the viewers’s “I” to gain a higher awareness when facing the specially crafted interactions—which include encounters with digital drawings, screen mirrors, animatronic animals, and other mechanical objects and vessels.
Installation view of Chando Ao’s “My I,” courtesy of the artist and Postmasters.
Pole Chairs (floor-to-ceiling metal pipes) beg viewers to climb atop their unconventional seats, taking part in a performative floating experience. Two robotic dogs (inspired by the gallery’s resident French bulldogs) react to visitors’s advances to demonstrate the functions of human’s best friends, programmed for companionship and service, respectively. The 3D-printed Vessels offer a moment of self-reflection as viewers contemplate how a living flower might thrive with a manmade sculpture, and the Mirror works replace the typical reflective surface with a screen that captures onlookers digitally.
Chando Ao, “Vessel (Left Solomon),” 2021 CNC aluminum pole, 3D printed aluminum, jewelry, flower 88 x 11 3/4 inches; courtesy of the artist and Postmasters.
Chando Ao, “BFF,” 2021, Sony Aibo ers-1000, Unitree A1, controller, speaker, mirror, and Chando’s song list; courtesy of the artist and Postmasters.
Installation view of Chando Ao’s “My I,” courtesy of the artist and Postmasters.
