Tishan Hsu, Outer Banks of Memory, 1984

Jennie Goldstein: Among Hsu’s primary concerns is the relationship between technology and the body, and this is something that he's been fascinated with since the 1980s. And, in some ways, has proven to be anticipatory of all kinds of technological advances or ways that we understand the role of media, especially social media, other technological content in our lives. 

Narrator: Tishan Hsu studied Environmental Design and Architecture at MIT before becoming an artist. Curator Jennie Goldstein discusses this work, Outer Banks of Memory. 

Jennie Goldstein: You can understand it to be like a topography, like a body, as if it has orifices and openings, parts of it project out, parts of it recede. There seems to be a kind of screen-like shape in the center that's propped up against the painting itself. So it becomes like a screen on top of a screen, something portable that's related to the whole. So when I look at it with twenty-first century eyes. I can't help but think of, you know, tablets or other kinds of portable technologies.

He's always been committed to painting. So this is not a rejection of a medium that has ancient roots for something more advanced or new would be a better way to say that. But someone who's thinking through kind of complex ideas about a very old art form.