Tao Ya-Lun

Tao Ya-Lun (b.1966) was born in Taipei, Taiwan. He received his BFA from the Department of Fine Arts, National Normal University, and his MFA from the Institute of Plastic Art, Tainan National University of the Arts. He is currently a professor at the College of Communication, National Chengchi University. Tao is a new media art pioneer in Taiwan, whose creative practice has begun with image installation, sound installation, mechanical installation and light art, and has recently moved on to time-based art in the form of AR and VR. He mostly draws his inspiration and topics from technological trends in this digital era, which reflect how human beings use technology as a means of physical extension and discuss bodily perception, the working of consciousness and the interaction between virtuality and reality.
Tao is the recipient of the New Media Art Installation Award in the 2018 Contemporary Audio-Visual and New Media Arts Festival (MADATAC) in Madrid, Spain. He was also the grant recipient of the Taiwan Fellowship Program launched by Asian Cultural Council, which he visited the United States as an exchange scholar. He has been invited to be the artist-in-residency by the Headlands Center for the Arts in San Francisco, and was sponsored by the Hong Kong Arts Development Council to be the first artist-in-residency at 1a space. He has also done an artist residency at the Nordic Institute for Contemporary Art that is prestigious for both digital images and technology arts. Tao has been honored by various awards, among which are the first prize of the scholarship program of the Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris; the outstanding alumnus of Tainan National University of the Arts; the Taipei Prize and Taipei County Prize, which are the most iconic prizes in Taiwan’s contemporary art scene; and the Li Chun-Shen Contemporary Painting Award that represents the spirit of the Asian contemporary art world, for which he was the youngest recipient of all time