Tishan Hsu’s visionary multimedia practice has been steadily concerned with the nexus of technology and the human body. Trained as an architect and working as a “word processor” in the early 1980s, his education and early exposure to the accelerated use of softwares has guided his adoption of non-traditional materials, and explorations of how virtual realities and new intelligences might weigh on the human condition. Hsu’s exhibition on Floor 3 of the museum – his first in Canada – traces his dedication to experimentation from the 1980s until the present day, reflecting his pioneering thinking, as well as focusing on metamorphosis and alienation. 

Interface Remix combines painting, sculpture, installation, and includes a new site-specific work made from emergent technologies. Key works from the last five decades will be presented alongside never-before-seen paintings and sculptures from the artist’s collection.

In recent years, Hsu has come to think of the screen as a kind of “skin” or barrier between the online and physical worlds. Responding to the museum’s architecture, Hsu has created a new wallpaper specifically for MOCA that stretches and wraps into an architectural object, giving it both a rigid and supple appearance. Cast acrylic elements protrude from the work’s surface, bringing the virtual nature of digital imaging into reality.

As our lives become increasingly transformed by technology, Hsu’s work continues to examine how the human experience relates to the rapidly evolving digital environment.