We Only Hang Out At Night
2018
Chang Ching Su
The idea for this series, We Only Hang Out at Night, came from a covert form of mass surveillance justified for public safety. For the Taiwanese, the flashlight from speeding cameras never fails to startle. The images captured will then be mailed along with the speeding ticket as evidence. My intent for this project was to catalyze a budget cycle, and it was approved by the university’s art festival committee. Being a public university, it was essentially funded with taxpayers’ money, which then went back to local infrastructure via the fines.
To make this piece, my friends and I did many rounds of orchestrated speeding and tried to do our best composition for the camera at midnight. My friends performed as those often overlooked in Taiwanese nightlife: drunks, cleaners, and loiterers. After the tickets were mailed to me, I reenacted the roles they performed in a studio. Between these two sets of images, I essentially commissioned the local authorities to help complete the series.