Remote Viewing

Curated by Alice Nien-pu Ko, Remote Viewing takes as its point of departure a 1930s Japanese experiment that attempted to transmit an image of the moon’s far side onto a photographic plate through mental projection. Tomokichi Fukurai, the psychologist and psychical researcher who played a critical role in this experiment, worked at the nexus of an international movement investigating the hidden capacities of the mind, bringing a distinctly Asian perspective to the field. Although professionally ostracized for his work, the striking photographs produced through these experiments remain a testament to Fukurai’s radical proposal that the mind as a form of imaging technology is relevant to creation today. Presented through an art-historical lens, these previously unexhibited photographs open onto the exhibition’s broader inquiry into the mind as an imaging apparatus. In an era when digital culture and advanced technologies have greatly expanded our ability to capture and share images of distant or previously unseen worlds, it is still the mind’s eye that allows us to see what is beyond normal vision. 

Bringing together historical archival materials and works by contemporary artists, Remote Viewing considers the image as a psychic interface through which time, voice, and identity may be reconfigured across geographic distance. The exhibition presents documentation of psychical and psychological experiments conducted during the prewar and Cold War eras as a framework for reevaluating a diverse range of Eastern and Western perspectives on consciousness and perception, opening onto a broader examination of the intricate relationship between art, psychology, dreams, meditation, and science. 

Spanning three floors of The Museum of National Taipei University of Education (MoNTUE), Remote Viewing opens with a presentation of previously unexhibited historical documents centered on Fukurai and his psychical experiments, which formed a field of inquiry around the “mental image.” The broader psychological concerns emerging from Fukurai’s work resonate with works on view by artists across generations, including Max Ernst, Nam June Paik, Shigeko Kubota, Tony Oursler, Susan Hiller, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Ho Tzu Nyen, Trevor Paglen, Sandra Mujinga, Jenna Sutela, Sky Hopinka, and Che-Yu Hsu × Wan-Yin Chen, among others. These works are presented alongside visual archives, photographs, and documents created by other practitioners of psychical experimentation, such as Koichi Mita, Chizuko Mifune, Madge Gill, Hélène Smith, Hippolyte Baraduc, and Ingo Swann, expanding the connections. By juxtaposing these objects and interweaving their histories, Remote Viewing traces how human perception has been continually re-interpreted and transformed across historical and contemporary contexts.

The exhibition advances a central proposition: remote viewing transcends the mere act of seeing what lies beyond the scope of unaided vision. The objects on view reveal how individual and collective psychic experiences are shaped by the frameworks of a subcultural modernity. These frameworks determine the ways bodies, histories, and testimonies are continuously brought into view, translated, and understood through ever-evolving visual languages. By situating these archival materials in dialogue with contemporary artworks, the exhibition reengages the histories they document through multiple epistemological perspectives, establishing a reciprocal and generative relationship between past and present. By examining the practices of participating artists through a nonlinear, cross-cultural lens, Remote Viewing seeks to question established art-historical narratives and open new possibilities for perception.

With works and documents by
Annie Besant × C. W. Leadbeater, Hippolyte Baraduc, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Louis Darget, Max Ernst, Falconer Brothers, Harun Farocki, Madge Gill, Lady Frieda Harris, Susan Hiller, Ho Tzu Nyen, Sky Hopinka, William Hope, Che-Yu Hsu × Wan-Yin Chen, Shigeko Kubota, Gerald Light, Yutaka Matsuzawa, Chizuko Mifune, Koichi Mita, Sandra Mujinga, Henry A. Murray × Christiana Morgan × Cecilia Roberts × Charles E. Burchfield, Ikuko Nagao, Jakob Ottonowitsch von Narkiewitsch-Jodko, Tony Oursler, Nam June Paik, Trevor Paglen, J.B. Rhine, Hermann Rorschach, Jeremy Shaw, Lieko Shiga, Hélène Smith, Chulin Sun, Jenna Sutela, Ingo Swann, Sadako Takahashi, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Karl Zener

Sponsors: National Culture and Arts Foundation, Reliable Source Industrial Co., Lion Pencil Co., Ltd.
Supporting Partners: Hong Foundation, Panasonic Taiwan, Taiwan Living Arts Foundation, C-LAB Taiwan Sound Lab