Li Yi-Fan: Screen Melancholy opening program

Taipei Fine Arts Museum (TFAM) of Taiwan Collateral Event Screen Melancholy: Li Yi-Fan, curated by Raphael Fonseca, at the 61st Venice Biennale will be held at the Palazzo delle Prigioni from May 9 to November 22, 2026. During the opening week, from May 7 to May 9, a series of public programs will be held in the afternoons. The opening ceremony will take place on the evening of May 7.  

In this year’s TFAM of Taiwan Collateral Event, the artist and curator, who both came of age when internet technology first exploded, serve as observers of the era of digital transformation, offering fresh perspectives and contemporary insights through narratives infused with humor and absurdity. Originally conceived in Portuguese, the title “Melancolia de tela” refers to the state of melancholy induced by prolonged screen use. As it evolves across languages into English and Chinese, new nuances unfolded under different contexts. The state of “Melancholy” addresses the anxiety stemming from information overload in the digital age and the rapid development of AI, reflecting the increasingly flattened sensory experiences and emotional states of individuals.

Fonseca traces the artist’s creative trajectory, from his first work, A Walk by the Sea (2011), to his new creation for this year’s Venice Biennale 2026, examining the evolution of his visual techniques and narrative rhythm, and how his scope of awareness has come to encompass contemporary digital culture. Simultaneously placing this under the lens of Western art history, Fonseca draws inspiration from German artist Albrecht Dürer’s 1514 work Melencolia I, bridging the Renaissance-era contemplation of the human condition and a present-day reflection on technological and visual anxieties.

Born in Taipei, Li Yi-Fan is currently participating in an artist residency of the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten program in Amsterdam. Having long developed his own video production tools and refined a creative approach known as “digital puppetry,” Li began using utilized real-time game engines in 2021 as a means to make animation production a more intuitive process, transforming images into a form of private exploration and metacognition. Through his work, Li also reveals the power structures underlying imagery, re-examines the relationship between human and video technology, exploring how imagery shapes human perception. “Screen Melancholy” marks a pivotal new phase in the artist’s creative practice. Bringing together years of research in visual technology, it searches for the essence of humanity within the gaps in machine learning and generative AI, leading us to ponder our current state of expanding knowledge and technological anxiety.

Taipei Fine Arts Museum began hosting exhibitions at the Palazzo delle Prigioni since 1995. This building was built in the early 17th century as a prison connected to the Palazzo Ducale, and prisoners of the past were fated to walk between the two as they proceeded to the cells where they would spend the rest of their lives. Li engages with the historical and architectural context of the Palazzo delle Prigioni, creating an unprecedented work that integrates the physical space into its visual narrative. As viewers walk into this “container” of images, sounds, and sculptures, they seem to awaken bodily memories as they engage with the work. Amid the interplay of the physical and the virtual, viewers are drawn into an intimate, immersive experience of at once “watching” and “being watched”.

Centered in the space is a 60-minute new video work, accompanied by two new videos on smaller screens. In the main video, Li tells a story of an 'eyeball' returning home, as a way to explore the layered relations between humans and images. Narrated like an instructional video in the tone of an improvisational soliloquy, the work reflects on explanations of computer animation and AI‑generated imagery, discussing the difference between “high” and “low” art. Through dialogues featuring the reunion of various “human organs,” he reflects on the impact of AI on humanity. As the video unfolds, the scenes shift, transforming the Palazzo delle Prigioni into a dramatically dynamic stage, where desire entwines with fear, exposing the close relationship millennials have with technology.

Continuing with his longstanding interest in models, digital puppetry, and simulated set compositions, the artist will install large-scale 3D-printed sculptures of hands, feet, heads, and limbs around the space, echoing the bodies of the digital performers on screen. As viewers watch the videos, they will be surrounded by these giant body fragments, which will also serve as seats to rest on. This creates a dramatic scene of deconstruction derived from computer-generated imagery that blurs the boundary between “reality” and “digital” space.

On the afternoon of the opening day, a public talk will be held between Li and Fonseca, in which they will share the creative process behind the exhibition. Afterward, the South Korean artist Eunju Hong will present She seemed devastated, when I was weeping with joy, a dance exploration of melancholy and bodily movement. Alongside the opening, TFAM will also release a new bilingual Artist Book documenting Li’s artistic career. Following a dialogue between Fonseca and Li, the book walks through 13 keywords such as “windows,” “machinima,” “physical body” and “controller” that connect the artist’s important previous works. The book will be available for purchase at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum Bookstore in May.

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