Installation view © Roy Gallery

Art has gradually shifted its emphasis from the transparency of the medium to its opacity; the medium can now function not merely as a means but as an end in itself. Like popular culture, art is subject to trends, and in an era when nearly all data related to art is accessible to anyone with the will to seek it, artists are continually pressured—both internally and externally—to transform the media they command. Yet a change of medium extends beyond a matter of technique. The artist’s intention and process must support such a transformation, and the final outcome becomes the evidence that proves its necessity.
 
This exhibition takes inspiration from the “Free Practice” session in Formula 1 (F1), highlighting within an artistic context the stages of experimentation and exploration that precede the completion of a work. If Free Practice in F1 is a preparatory phase leading up to the main race, this exhibition focuses on the formal experiments and processes artists undergo in the course of their practice. The artist searches for a new “circuit” on which to race—or rather, to devote (傾注) art—and the trajectory that unfolds in this process corresponds to a practice lap as an aesthetic inquiry.

Installation view © Roy Gallery

Artists possess an innate formative language that includes unconscious and bodily movements, closely tied to the medium they have handled for a long time. For this reason, a transformation of medium is rare, and transitioning to a new one entails psychological and cognitive burdens akin to an adult learning an unfamiliar foreign language. However, in the process of acquiring a new medium, unfamiliarity becomes a stimulus, prompting the artist to move beyond his own established world. Simply replicating the conventional uses of an existing medium holds little meaning; instead, more active experimentation is required of the artist.
 
Media continuously hold shifting boundaries in response to technological and temporal change, as seen historically in the tensions and interactions between painting and photography, or painting and video. Today, the advancement of digital tools renders these boundaries even more ambiguous and stimulates experimentation across them.

A transition of medium should therefore be understood not merely as a technical shift but as a reconfiguration of a system that entails changes in artistic thinking and expression. When the medium an artist possesses can no longer realize its latent creative potential, it becomes necessary to explore and introduce new media through experimentation.
 
This process involves both rupture and the search for new connections, revealing how art remains vital in relation to the currents of its time. The expansion of media is not a one-time event but repeatedly influences an artist’s practice. Ultimately, artists find themselves in a position where they must continuously learn, experiment, and expand their own boundaries.

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