Video installation conceived to the exhibition “Discovering the Other”, at the National Palace Museum, Taipei, in July 2007. “Erotic Space” consists of four small rooms within a larger dark room, deliberately made to resemble a gay sauna. In each room, there is a cheap mattress, a roll of toilet paper and a television set playing a looped DVD of the artist’s personal travel videos filmed in various countries over the past 10 years. The video is like a personal diary and records not only scenes from the artist’s travels but also several private and candid conversations between the artist and his long-time collaborator and muse, actor Lee Kang-Sheng. Viewers are allowed to roam freely from room to room in the darkened exhibition space, illuminated only by the light from the TV screens. This allows for intimate encounters with anonymous strangers. They can even lock themselves in if they desired. “The entrance is the exit
Darkness is a passage that leads
To the depths of the soul
Sometimes, you lose sight of your own fingers
All you hear is the sound of breathing
Be cautious around the corner
For you could meet a stranger in the mirror
You walk by room after room
Door after door
Some locked, some not
You can stay in the rooms as long as you want
You can wait
You can sleep
You can cry for the person next door to hear
You can share the space with another
That is, if both of you are willing
Feel free to use the roll of tissue paper
But please do not remove it from the room
Surveillance cameras are in operation
Do not do anything silly
There is no pornography here
Only Tsai Ming-liang’s travel videos”
Tsai Ming-liang