2022TAF: Think Bar 'Bat Feast Lab'

In dialogue with art and biology, and a contemplation over the Covid pandemic, the Festival looks at the present and future boundary between speculative design, performance and science as forms of representation and discourses for our increasingly complex times.

Referencing the legendary Manchu-Han Imperial Banquet of exotic dishes, Ku Kuang-Yi, a dentist-turned-bioartist from Taiwan, assembles fellow scientists, artists and animal experts in a forum-feast, taking the bat as central subject.

In Bat Feast Lab, they seek to generate multiple perspectives: to discuss the controversies in ecological issues, cultural prejudices and racism, food ethics and tech cultures; or to host culinary workshops to experiment with innovation, design and performative relations.

What it takes in this participatory and discursive program is curiosity, courage and care to engage in the lab process. Come discover the possibility of co-creating a new form of knowledge production and experience!

Ku Kang-Yi, Taiwan

Ku Kuang-Yi attempts to expand the possibilities of combining arts, design and science. His works often focus on clinical medicine, human body, interspecies interaction and sexuality. He tries to explore ethical issues in the scientific field through artistic practice and design methods, aiming to investigate the relationships among technology, individual and environment. 

Robert Charles Johnson, England

Working with film and interactive design, Johnson's projects create alternative narratives using fictional writing as a design research tool, creating characters and dialogues that highlight issues surrounding social attitudes towards labour, materials, and waste streams within the circular economy. Using this specific approach to researching holistic systems, developed during his Master degree, he explores cross-collaborative methods for human innovation from the most unexpected corners of society.