
About
Horizons in Layers
Taipei, where the boundaries and imagination converge
The “sea horizon” is not only a visual boundary, but a metaphor layered with history, politics, and culture.
At the 2025 Taipei Digital Arts Festival, the term “Horizons in Layers” is extended to represent the boundary of the digital world. Immersed daily in digital imagery, we drift within the vast currents of information. The horizon is not an absolute line that can be defined by an absolute number; rather, it depends on the viewer’s position, perspective, and the limits of the database. Through this notion, the festival hopes that audiences will reflect from a humanistic and historical point of view on how imaging technologies and online databases shape the very boundaries of what we see.
In line with the theme, this exhibition takes Dadaocheng Wharf as its core venue. Its unique location is inherently filled with symbolic significance. Not only is it situated at the confluence of two rivers, it also bears witness to Taiwan’s vibrant maritime trade with the world. To this day, Dadaocheng still bears the historical memory of the city’s development. Its significance as a “border” has never faded, extending from a place of cargo transit to a hub for contemporary information culture and the flow of global travelers.

Amid the sweeping tides of globalization and digitalization, the distinction between physical and virtual boundaries grows increasingly blurred. National borders, cultural divisions, and personal privacy—once regarded as traditional boundaries—now face unprecedented challenges and transformations. This exhibition, through the perspectives of its artists, seeks to examine how such layered boundaries continue to shape human perception and our sense of existence.
“Horizons in Layers” is not only an artistic feast but also a journey of profound reflection. This year’s participating artists (Lien-Chang Wang, Kin Li, Lim Sokchanlina, Wen-Che LIN, Ya-Wen Tang, Han-Po Huang, Yi-Ting Tsai) approach their works from the perspectives of personal experience and urban governance. Exhibiting at Dadaocheng Wharf and the King Car Cultural and Art Center Chengde Space, they collectively explore the complex relationship between modern natural and political boundaries. Through diverse forms such as landscape-integrated technology, multi-channel videos, and interactive light installations, they illuminate Taipei’s old city with both poetry and technology.
Celebrating its 20th year, the Taipei Digital Arts Festival has, since its inception in 2006, become an annual celebration of digital creativity, bringing together the talents of artists from Taiwan and around the world. In Taiwan, a hub of technological development, the festival highlights the interplay between humanistic reflection and creative imagination. Through these works, audiences are invited to explore Taiwan’s unique position in a changing global landscape, to understand the multiple meanings of boundaries in both personal and collective experience, and to reimagine the horizon of boundless possibilities for the future.
Artworks
Dadaocheng Wharf Plaza
Lien-cheng Wang
〈 Sphere–sun〉Artwork Description
〈Sphere-Sun is part of a creative project. The artist wrote a program, which can be set with keywords to input to an online search engine, and instantly process the resulting image into a video. The position of each image will be automatically adjusted according to the keywords entered, so the objects are concentrated in the middle of the screen. The keywords used in this version are sphere and sun.
The images on the search engine are all uploaded by users. When we enter a keyword, the results represent a common collective experience of or imagination that everyone in the world has for this term. Therefore, these images placed together creates an unfamiliar sense of body, which is used to explore the relationship between artificial intelligence, collective consciousness and body sense.
Year / Medium /Duration :
2020
Single channel video, stereo sound, real-time computing program
Lien-cheng Wang
〈Horizon-sea〉Artwork Description
Horizon-Sea is part of a creative project. The artist wrote a program, which can be set with keywords to input to an online search engine, and instantly process the resulting image into a video. The position of each image will be automatically adjusted according to the keywords entered, so the objects are concentrated in the middle of the screen. The keywords used in this version are horizon and sea.
The images on the search engine are all uploaded by users. When we enter a keyword, the results represent a common collective experience or imagination that everyone in the world has for this term. Therefore, these images placed together creates an unfamiliar sense of body, which is used to explore the relationship between artificial intelligence, collective consciousness and body sense.
Year / Medium /Duration :
2020
Single channel video, stereo sound, real-time computing program
Han-Po Huang
〈Moving Frontiers〉Artwork Description
In various movements, humans move over mountaintops, across plains, through oceans from one place to another. This boundless horizon is not the end, but the beginning of the next journey.
“Place,” as a carrier of collective memory, condenses individual perceptions and emotions; as space reveals wrinkles and traces, it also reflects the constant shifts and imaginations. The mobility of the body, transporting boundaries, not only reveals physical distances and visible “places,” but also points to the perceptual “other places.”
This work attempts to deconstruct the existing boundaries and norms of “place,” echoing the human experience of constant movement across boundaries and pondering how, amidst social change, people reconstruct their emotional connection and identity with the land.
Year / Medium /Duration :
2025
Ten-channel video
Tsai Yi-Ting
〈The Form of Wind and Nature〉Artwork Description
Leaves, tinged with the colors of nature, reveal different postures as the seasons turn—from the tender green of new life to the lush fullness of summer, and finally to the quiet stillness of decay. This cycle reflects the eternal flow of nature. In the rhythm of the wind, leaves take on its shape, swaying freely to weave a dynamic harmony and an interdependence with the environment. Within the river of time and the cycle of life, they continue unceasingly and inscribe an endless existence.
Year / Medium /Duration :
2023
Kinetic installation
King Car Cultural and Art Center Chengde Space
Kin Li
〈The Realm of Victoria〉Artwork Description
The Realm of Victoria uses the “Victoria City Boundary Stone” in Hong Kong as a metaphor to explore the disappearance of historical memory and the reconstruction of boundaries. As a tangible marker of the colonial regime’s territory, the boundary stone once clearly defined the city’s limits. With the change of regimes and urban development, it faced removal, loss, or oblivion. The disappearance of the boundary stone is not only the fading of a spatial symbol but also a symbol of the loss of collective historical memory, reflecting the fluidity and uncertainty of identity and belonging. Through 3D dynamic images, the work reconstructs these lost landscapes. In the interwoven virtual and real space, it is not merely a retrospective of colonial history but a critical state interwoven with power, history, and imagination, a boundary city existing between oblivion and the critical juncture.
Year / Medium /Duration :
2024
Multi-channel video Installation, color, sound
Lim Sokchanlina
〈A Letter To The Sea〉Artwork Description
In 2015, international news found out that there is fishing slavery in Thai fishing industry. There are so many issues including work abuse, human trafficking, drug using and trafficking, no contact to relatives, working in sea without seeing mainland for many years and so on. In 2017, Thailand reformed its rule on fishing industry. There are slaveries from Loa, Myanmar and Cambodia.
I visited many Cambodia fishermen in Thailand sea in many provinces in the south of Thailand including Samut Prakan, Chun Buri, Rayong, Trat, Samut Sakhon, SongKhla, and Pattani province. I have decided to write a letter and read the letter in the sea at ko Kut. Ko Kut (Kut Island) is an island near Thai and Cambodia sea border next to Kos Kong province in Cambodia. It is a reading performance under sea for a video. It is dedicated to enslaved Cambodian fisherman in Thailand.
Year / Medium /Duration :
2019
Video installation, color
Lim Sokchanlina
〈Wrapped Future II〉Artwork Description
The mountain wind of the high red land flows down to the spirit forest and continues its way to the central land and river, causing waves to reach the oceans.
Six months of heat and six months of rain in Cambodia create a beautiful light and atmosphere in the landscape of space. Seasons and time both pass from one generation to another, leaving marks, damage, and memory to reveal what is now, yet not knowing what is the future.
The future that I am always looking for is uncertain, fragile, and unreachable.
What you see is not always what you truly see! It is not clear what exactly it is. Is it damage, or only a shadow in your eye?
The landscapes freeze me in isolation, for a moment in time. My feelings seem to relax; I fall into unconsciousness, into a dream, confused about the reality in front of me. This reality feels unrecognizable. Perhaps you have been confused like me.
The stillness of perfectly shaped colors and forms of an industrial-made fence, carefully installed and placed, stands against the powerful, mysterious nature—turning into experiences surprisingly uncontrolled and unexpected.
Year / Medium /Duration :
2017
photography print, video
Wen-Che Lin
〈mmt_01〉Artwork Description
mmt_01 is an installation work combining 3D video and employs a non-linear narrative structure, creating a series of images and fragments that occur simultaneously or intertwine uncertainty and illogical sequences. This structure stems from the artist’s experience recalling specific situations, where different, contradictory, yet coexisting images often emerge from his mind.
This project was inspired by the TV series Black Mirror, the animated series Love, Death & Robots, and Otsuichi’s novel If I Were in My Right Mind (私の頭が正常であったなら).These works share a common theme: while the stories lack continuity between chapters or episodes, they nonetheless share a common atmosphere and symbols. For example, the recurring song in multiple episodes of Black Mirror or the similar and bizarre phenomena that appear in different plots in Otsuichi’s novel.
Year / Medium /Duration :
2022
3D animated video, sound, wooden installation
Wen-Che Lin
〈mmt_02〉Artwork Description
As an extended response to mmt_01, mmt_02 attempts to eliminate the overwhelming complexity of information, sound, and imagery, leaving behind a minimalist scene: a virtual character (the author of the reaction) floating on a riverbank, silent and emotionally condensed. This still and floating presence serves as both a contrast to the fragmented violence of the previous work and a gaze upon the self amidst the digital torrent.
Year / Medium /Duration :
2023
3D animated video, sound, wooden installation
Wen-Che Lin
〈mmt_ads〉Artwork Description
mmt_ads explores the pervasive presence of video advertisements on contemporary social media.
In this algorithm-driven world, advertising is no longer merely the transmission of information; it employs a repertoire of techniques and psychological strategies, such as hooks, emotional resonance, calls to action (CTA), and big promises—precisely delivered through big data targeting to reach each viewer.
These push mechanisms are far from neutral. They reflect our habits of watching images and videos: short, fast, stimulating and repetitive. With the popularization and lower threshold of shooting and editing technologies, the production of video content by the public has grown at an exponential pace, leading to an overabundance of information.
This overproduction and constant algorithmic distribution not only expand the availability of information but also fundamentally alter our patience and attention patterns. Viewers are conditioned to expect instant gratification and rapid transitions, with their attention spans steadily diminishing.
The work mirrors this algorithm-shaped viewing culture, suggesting that the audience is not merely a passive receiver but an integral part of the flood of images.
Year / Medium /Duration :
2023
3D animated video, sound, wooden installation
Tang Ya-Wen
〈 Preface: Following the Pencil Trace II〉Artwork Description
Preface: Following the Pencil Trace II serves as the prologue to this series of works. In the video, a hand holding the pencil in the image constantly moves and dots, with perspective shifting due to the magnifying glass held in its hand. In this moment, past experiences are condensed onto this thin world map. The pen, swiftly and neatly, guides us across the globe. Those rough, thick hands, with their prominent veins, wrinkles, and spots, use their clear and skillful strokes to guide me through places he has visited.
Year / Medium /Duration :
2019
Single-channel video
Tang Ya-Wen
〈Coworker, High School Classmate, the Receptionist, and the Port Company Worker〉Artwork Description
This multi-channel video unfolds through four narrative threads, beginning with Preface: Following the Pencil Trace II. From the points marked on the world map, the stories ferment and shift, gradually connecting into a path that traces the places once visited by that ship. Subtle and elusive connections seem to exist among the characters, as they speak in unison to describe the “he” they see. But who is this “he”? And what might he signify? In the process of constructing this subject, I am also summoning the imagined scenes in my mind, which closely follow the imaginary narrative of reality.
Year / Medium /Duration :
2019(2025 Re-edited version)
Multi-channel video, paper
Activities
The 2025 Taipei Digital Art Festival, themed ” Horizons in Layers” meticulously features two curated artist talks focusing on the creative context and thematic explorations. These discussions serve as the core of this year’s educational outreach, delving into key topics such as boundaries, landscape, and digital perception. The event also includes experiential workshops such as riverside yoga, mobile photography, and parent-child exercise, inviting audiences to interact with the venue through physical perception, transforming the exhibition from a mere viewing experience into participation and empathy.
Artist Talk
Artist Talk I: Boundaries in Motion
How do the mobility and migration of personal life experiences influence our understanding of national boundaries? When our life trajectories are no longer defined by a single line, how will our understanding of ourselves and the world undergo transformation and fluidity? This discussion will feature four participating artists: Lim Sokchanlina, Kin Li, Wen-Che Lin, and Ya-Wen Tang. They will share how individual life experiences shape their creative work; how to view the fluidity and ambiguity of “political boundaries” from the perspective of “natural boundaries”; and further explore how, beyond physical boundaries, virtual and psychological boundaries influence our understanding of ourselves and the world. Together, they will reflect on the diversity and complexity of “boundaries” between individuals and the world, and between the inner and outer.
• Date & Time: 14:00–1600, Saturday, October 25
• Venue: 4F, King Car Art Center Chengde Space
• Moderator: Tsai Shihwei
• Participating Artists: Lim Sokchanlina, Kin Li, Wen-Che Lin, and Ya-Wen Tang
• Program:
14:00–14:10 Opening Remarks
14:10–15:30 Artists’ Presentations
15:30–16:00 Panel Discussion & Q&A
Artist Talk II: Layered Digital Nature
In the digital age, have the boundaries between the artificialness and the nature become blurred? When code constructs imagined natural imagery, and technology captures physical landscapes, how will the “boundaries” we perceive be redefined?
In this talk, three participating artists— Lien-Cheng Wang, Han-Po Huang, and Yi-Ting Tsai— will share how their creative practices explore the relationship between the artificialness and the nature. Spanning programming, aerial imaging, and 3D installations, their works range from digitally co-constructed natural imagery on the internet to landscapes where natural and architectural boundaries intertwine and to poetic expressions of coexistence between the artificialness and the nature. Together, they reflect on the diverse and fluid “boundaries” of the digital age, prompting a rethinking of our interaction with nature in this era.
• Date & Time: 14:00–1600, Saturday, November 8
• Venue: 4F, King Car Art Center Chengde Space
• Moderator: Chih-Wei Chuang
• Participating Artists: Lien-Cheng Wang, Han-Po Huang, Yi-Ting Tsai
• Program
14:00–14:10 Opening Remarks
14:10–15:30 Artists’ Presentations
15:30–16:00 Panel Discussion & Q&A
Public Participation Activity
Horizon in Motion: Stretch and Relax Yoga Class
At dusk on the banks of the Dadaocheng River, a professional yoga instructor will guide participants through gentle stretches and breathing exercises. This allows the body to flow through nature and art, re-perceiving space and the present, and engaging in a dialogue between inner and outer boundaries.
• Date & Time: 17:00–18:00, Sunday, October 26
• Instructor: Krystal
• Participants/Venue: 20 people, Yanping Riverside Park, Dadaocheng Wharf
• Meeting Point: Glass House, Dadaocheng Wharf
• Participation Gift: Yoga Mat and Duffle Bag
Pixel Transfer Station: Mobile Photography Workshop
Participants will be guided to use their mobile phones to capture the city landscape and exhibition works, integrating the unique characteristics of Dadaocheng with the festival’s theme, “Horizons in Layers,” to develop their own perspectives on the city through photography. Participants will also be encouraged to upload their works to the festival’s Instagram account for a public display.
• Date & Time: 16:00–19:00, Sunday, November 2
• Instructor: Chih-Wei Ming (President of the Mobile Photography Society)
• Participants/Venue: 20 people, Dadaocheng Wharf and surrounding area
• Meeting Point: Glass House, Dadaocheng Wharf
• Participation Gift: 2 Exhibition Postcards
Urban Drift: Parent-Child Movement Workshop
Set against a city riverbank, this class uses simple and playful body movements and simulations to guide parents and children in imitating the rhythms of the river, tides, and boats. Participants can experience the fluidity of “boundaries” and the rhythm of the city, exploring the connection between space and self through lively interaction.
• Date & Time: 16:00–17:00, Wednesday, November 5
• Instructor: Hsiao-Wei Hsieh and Hsiao-Ting Hsieh (art director of InTW Studio)
• Participants/Venue: 15-30 people, Yanping Riverside Park, Dadaocheng Wharf
• Meeting Point: Glass House, Dadaocheng Wharf
• Participation Gift: 2 Event Emblems
Exhibition
2025 Taipei Digital Art Festival – Horizons in Layers
October 25 – November 9, 2025 (Closed on Mondays)
Dadaocheng Wharf Plaza
4:00 PM – 10:00 PM (Saturdays & Sundays open from 12:00 PM)
King Car Cultural and Art Center Chengde Space
11:00 AM – 6:00 PM(Fridays, Saturdays & Sundays close at 9:00 PM)
Guided Tours
<Scheduled Tours>
Dadaocheng Wharf Plaza
— Daily at 17:00
King Car Cultural and Art Center Chengde Space
— Daily at 14:00
No registration required. Please check with on-site staff.
<Group Tours>
For group visits, please complete the reservation form at least 3 days prior to your visit
Getting Here
<Dadaocheng Wharf Plaza>
Address: Minsheng West Road (Water Gate No. 5), Datong District, Taipei City
By MRT: Take the Taipei Metro to Beimen Station or Daqiaotou Station, then walk about 15–20 minutes.
<King Car Cultural & Art Center, Chengde Hall>
Address: No. 131, Section 3, Chengde Road, Datong District, Taipei City
By MRT: Take the Taipei Metro to Yuanshan Station or Minquan West Road Station, then walk about 10 minutes.