Hsu Chia-Wei's 'Inter-Order of Things' Exhibition at Liang Gallery Explores Digital Ecology Through Collage

Hsu Chia-Wei's exhibition 'Inter-Order of Things' ran from 13 November to 19 December 2021 at Liang Gallery. The artist employs collage as a primary medium to investigate relationships between digital technology and ecological systems. His work creates what he terms an 'inter-order of things,' referencing Michel Foucault's theories of taxonomy while incorporating internet logic. Hsu's practice combines multiple media including video installations, drawings, photographs, and documentary elements that examine shipwrecks, flora, fauna, and cultural totems. He disrupts linear narratives through interactive screens where viewers navigate codes, links, files, and algorithms. The exhibition features what Hsu describes as a 'period eye,' borrowing from art historian Michael Baxandall's concept of visual milieu, which Jonathan Crary might call the 'technique of the observer.' This approach reveals how human and non-human entities coexist in compromised landscapes marked by colonial histories and extraction. Hsu's work avoids straightforward representations of ecological crisis, instead focusing on variations and encounters between species, objects, and digital systems. His kinetic visuality creates scenes of intense reciprocity that challenge conventional epistemologies. The exhibition presents a carefully crafted relay of object studies, video installations, and documentary investigations that trouble ties between ecology and knowledge systems.