Entung Liu
- Anna Lilli Garai
- Nov 11
- 8 min read
Entung Liu is an artist from Taipei who now lives in New York. She works in performance, video, installation, photography, and sound. Her projects often start with the body in a specific location. She uses simple actions to explore how a place influences movement, presence, and attention. In her ongoing series “Too Bright To Be Painful,” she performs still poses outdoors while holding an iPad that shows generated color fields. This creates a clear contrast between physical and digital presence. Many of her works develop through repetition and duration instead of a narrative. Her approach is hands-on and based on experiments. She adjusts the work by doing rather than planning. The result is art that comes from real situations and direct experience.
Q: What first made you want to test how much the body can feel through a screen?
A: I began thinking about this question before the widespread emergence of mobile devices. While studying performance art history, I often relied on video and photography as documentation—proof of something that had already happened. Most people encountered these works only through recordings rather than in-person experiences, and watching older videos made me question whether it is truly possible to feel a performance through the documentation.
After the internet boom, artists increasingly turned to websites and social media as primary platforms to share their work. For contemporary artists, this mode of presentation became almost essential.
Yet I noticed that performance art, by its very nature, depends deeply on the physical environment—the smell of the space, the vibration of movement, the resonance of sound, and even the shared eye contact among participants. These elements disappear when the work is mediated through a digital screen.
At the same time, our broader experience of the world was also shifting. People were beginning to perceive and understand reality mainly through digital devices. The world—and art—became compressed into images and pixels within smooth glass surfaces. This transformation made me wonder how our sensory perception adapts, and whether the body can still connect, feel, and understand when so much of the sensory and spatial richness is lost. How does our body exist in the digital era? That curiosity became the starting point for my exploration of how much the body can feel through the screen.
Q: You often connect gesture and awareness. How does your body guide what you create?
A: When I enter a space, I observe it from multiple angles and through different bodily gestures. I am drawn to movements that feel unusual or out of place within that environment. For instance, most people think of a New York subway station as a space of transit—somewhere to pass through quickly. But what if we stayed there for an extended period? What would it feel like to simply be in that space—to breathe, lie down, or clean the floor together? Such gestures defy convention and reveal new layers of experience and meaning. This curiosity led me to create “A Daily Theater,” a site-specific participatory performance inviting participants to rediscover the subway station in unconventional ways. Similarly, in my “Too Bright To Be Painful” series, I transpose intimate domestic gestures—those usually performed in private spaces—into natural outdoor settings.
The contrast between gesture and environment creates tension and space for imagination, while also heightening my own bodily awareness and sensitivity.
This process is about sensing through the body rather than relying immediately on intellectual interpretation. When we suspend the urge to analyze or judge and instead attend to what we physically feel, overlooked details emerge—textures, sounds, echoes, and subtle rhythms of movement. This embodied exploration continually reshapes how I perceive both space and the world around me. Different gestures invite different ways of seeing, and through my work, I invite others to share this shifting perception. This approach also allows me to reimagine familiar environments and question the social rules and structures that shape them. It reveals what we often take for granted as “normal” and opens up the possibility of transformation. I believe that every individual experiences the world differently—our perspectives can never fully align—but we can still respect and coexist with one another. By attempting to see from another person’s viewpoint, even when our ideologies differ, we begin to sense how others feel.
In this way, gesture becomes not only a method of perceiving space but also a means of standing—bodily and empathetically—in the same place as others.
Q: In “Too Bright To Be Painful”, the stillness feels almost physical. What happens in that space between effort and calm?
A: In “Too Bright To Be Painful,” I establish a set of rules for the performance, one of which is to remain in a single position for at least one minute. During this time, I aim to appear completely still. However, depending on the gesture or location, some positions are difficult to balance or sustain.
If viewers observe the video closely and patiently, they may notice subtle movements—breathing, micro-adjustments, shifts in weight. These movements are so slight that, at a glance or when scrolling quickly, the performer might appear as still as a photograph. In many cases, the body’s movement is even less perceptible than the ambient motions in the surrounding natural environment.
This intentional subtlety serves multiple purposes. I want viewers to focus on the environment itself. Often, we overlook the nuanced activity of the natural world—the wind rustling leaves, the background sounds, the quiet motion that surrounds us. By minimizing the performer’s movement, I contrast the body’s stillness with the liveliness of the environment, drawing attention to details that might be neglected.
At the same time, the calm surface of the performance belies the effort required to maintain it.
Unlike conventional performance, which often emphasizes expressive or overtly physical gestures, here I conceal the exertion behind a façade of stillness. The strength, balance, and concentration necessary to sustain the position are invisible at first, revealing themselves only upon careful observation. This approach also engages with the question of how bodily experience can be transmitted through digital media. Many viewers will encounter this work through screens—on phones or computers in comfortable home environments. By mirroring the quiet, stationary posture of the viewer while embedding the hidden effort in the performer’s body, I hope to evoke a subtle awareness of tension and labor that lies beneath calm surfaces. In this space between effort and stillness, the body becomes a mediator, guiding attention to both physical presence and the surrounding environment, and inviting the viewer to discover layers of subtle movement and intention that might otherwise go unnoticed.
Q: You describe daily life as a kind of theater. When does an everyday moment start to feel like a performance to you?
A: I began to sense that daily life is a kind of theater when I was very young. As a child, I often felt both curious and slightly uncomfortable observing adults. They seemed to follow invisible rules, performing gestures, tones, and behaviors specific to each environment. At home, at school, or in public, they adjusted their movements and speech as if following a script. Even then, life resembled a stage, and people wore metaphorical masks to navigate social expectations. As I grew older, I realized these patterns persist. Adults continuously adapt their language, posture, and gestures to suit different contexts. Each setting has its own codes, like distinct theatrical stages with unique choreography. An everyday moment feels like a performance to me when I notice this dynamic: the conscious or unconscious adjustment of self, the negotiation between authenticity and expectation. It is in these moments that the boundaries between real life and theater blur.
This perspective also informs my artistic practice. Just as playwrights draw inspiration from daily life to create narratives on stage, I study how people inhabit roles in their routines. Observing these performances allows me to explore how gestures, movements, and interactions reveal underlying social rules and human behaviors. In this way, the ordinary becomes a lens for understanding the extraordinary—the structure of society, the roles we play, and the stories we live. Daily life, therefore, is both theater and material for art. By examining these performances, I aim to capture the tension between authenticity and enactment, revealing how our lived experiences are simultaneously scripted and improvised. In essence, life itself provides the stage, and every moment holds the performance potential.
Q: How do technology and nature speak to each other in your work?
A: People often think of technology and nature as opposing forces—technology as something that consumes energy and disrupts ecosystems, while nature represents organic balance and growth. We also tend to associate digital technology with disconnection, as our attention shifts from the physical environment to the screen.
Yet, I see technology and nature as deeply intertwined rather than contradictory. Technology has always been a way for humans to understand and engage with nature—scientifically, emotionally, and even spiritually. In my work, I am interested in exploring how we can rebuild our relationship with nature in the digital era. For me, this is not about using technology to fix environmental problems, but about sensing and feeling—about rediscovering how technology can mediate our emotional and bodily connection with the natural world.
The concept of ritual is central to this process. Rituals have long linked humans to natural cycles—day and night, seasons, life and decay. I wonder: what is a technological ritual today? Can we still preserve the essence and spirit of nature through digital means? I want to imagine technology as something soft, emotional, and alive—not merely cold, rational, or mechanical.
In “Too Bright To Be Painful,” I use technical devices, digital light, and hex color code to reflect the patterns and textures found in animals or landscapes. This combination allows technology to become more organic, almost like a living material. I hope my works encourage people to experience technology as they would experience nature—with sensitivity, curiosity, and care. Through this dialogue, I believe technology and nature can mirror one another, revealing new ways of feeling connected in a contemporary world.
Q: When you build a connection between body and space, what tells you that it’s working?
A: I know the connection between body and space is working when I begin to feel a sense of unease or unfamiliarity. That moment signals that I have stepped outside my comfort zone and entered an experience I have not had before. I actually enjoy this kind of discomfort—it can even be painful at times—but I don’t see pain as something negative. Painfulness is a direct and powerful reminder of the body’s presence.
When we are too comfortable—lying on a sofa, watching television, or scrolling through a mobile device—we often lose awareness of our own bodies. Time slips by, and we almost forget that we physically exist. There is a certain hollowness in that state, a feeling of disconnection. Discomfort, on the other hand, brings awareness back to the body; it sharpens our sense of being present. That moment of awareness is often my first sign that something meaningful is happening—that the connection is taking shape. Unease and pain are like a doorbell that reminds me of embodiment. Once I notice that, I begin to focus on breathing and perception, allowing myself to listen to the space. Every environment holds information, but receiving it requires a particular state of attentiveness. When I begin to hear subtle sounds, feel shifts in air or temperature, or sense vibrations in the surroundings, I know the environment is communicating with me. Those are the moments I try to bring into my work. As long as I remain able to listen and respond to what the environment offers, I know the tension and dialogue between my body and the space are alive—that the connection is truly working.
