TAT KUEN KO

Hong Kong SAR China °1990
research interests: hauntology, Postmemory, artistic research, artistic practices, time, temporality
affiliation: independent researcher
en

Tat-kuen KO is a practicing artist and independent researcher. He explores the possibilities of materials with temporal qualities and the presentation of artworks through photographic documentation, aiming to construct temporal structures. His work seeks to provide space for appropriating theories related to time.

research

research expositions

  • Redefining Time-Based Art: Temporal Dimensions in Static Media Through Time-Based Materials and Imminence (2025) author(s): TAT KUEN KO published in: HUB - Journal of Research in Art, Design and Society
    This article examines an expanded conceptualization of time-based art beyond artworks that unfold consecutively over measurable durations. Typical time-based art was characterized with clear beginning and ending such as performance, cinematic art, moving image, sound art, and computational installation. In contrast, this analysis investigates how static art possesses temporal qualities through alternative means. With the incorporation of “time-based materials” - substances that transform their external forms over time – we establish an alternative time-based art characterized by an imminent temporality. Historical paintings like Goya’s "The Third of May 1808" and Bruegel’s "The Fall of the Rebel Angels" reveal early attempts to the depiction of time through compositional arrangement and juxtaposition of events. The author extends this tradition by exploring how certain materials possess intrinsic “temporal directionality” – a predictable but fluctuating transformation process. Examples include oxidation of metals that undergo the process of rusting and patination, creating visual changes that occur gradually and unpredictably, embodying what the author terms an imminent quality - known to happen but uncertain in exact duration. The author makes use of his own artworks as case studies: "Simulacra" (2015), a juxtaposition of photographs of copper armors against the actual deteriorating objects; "The Fall of the Rebel Angels" (2022), a translation of Pieter Bruegel’s painting into an installation using patinated copper; and "Public Cemetery" (2023), an incorporation of natural phenomenon like rain and typhoons as temporal agents. These works demonstrate how materials that vulnerable to intrinsic transformation can create temporal experiences that transcend conventional time-based art definitions, offering new possibilities for expressing time through the interplay of possibility, impossibility, and imminence.
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