Constellations
Almost every visitor’s first impression of the Signal series is of constellations of stars, probably because of the intuitive intrigue of celestial patterns, probably because of the call of ad astra per aspera that runs through histories—whether via popular culture references like Star Trek or the many institutions that uphold the spirit of striving toward the stars through hardship. In Tan Mu’s Signal paintings, the constellation points away from subject or telos toward a telecommunication system, a critical infrastructure with greater significance than is often assumed: the submarine cables. As of 2025 the network comprises 597 cable systems and 1712 landings in the latest cable map produced by TeleGeography. It is by no means an even system. One easily traces clusters and geometries that mirror geographical surfaces and socioeconomic activities. The cables and landings in Signal 04 (Norway, 2025), for example, exude a commanding glow with a dash of airiness in the upper right, conveying the orderliness and austerity of magnificent coastlines. Signal 06 (Caribbean Sea, 2025), in comparison, is flamboyant and unapologetically convoluted, reflecting the dense archipelago. More than mapping the negative space of inhabited land, the paintings portray the evolving co-authorship of geography, economy, politics, and technology. In oil and acrylic, the thick yellow dots and pale lines create a luminous image that some read as collage or even electrically lit installation.
Everything on the Line
Dipping into a sea of stars
A network of connections
fragile, human
The sound of a string
Vibrating in infinity
everything on the line
Imagine the world connected through a taut string that could rip at any moment. A fragile yet beautiful nexus creating tension between the sky, the earth, and us as human beings. The strings of technology come to life on the strings of art, an invisible line converting the artworks into music and vice versa.
The performance Everything on the Line was conceived to convey Tan Mu’s art through music. It was rooted in the belief that music can act as a catalyst—connecting artwork and audience, emotion and intellect. For me, connection was the central concept of the exhibition.
The first time I encountered the Signal series, I felt magnetically drawn to the canvas. Some elements became clear only through explanation; others resonated instantly. I began reflecting on how to translate that multi-layered depth into sound—how to make the art's inherent connections tangible to an audience. Because for me, music in an exhibition like this only makes sense when it serves as a bridge - between the artwork’s inner logic, the presence of the listener, and the countless connections they themselves carry into the space.
The question was: how?
Alone, Together / Locals, Everywhere
In 2023, the exhibition title of the Venice Biennial seemed to perfectly encompass our socio political environment: Foreigners Everywhere.
It was elegant, political, and true: a pejorative transformed into a rallying cry from a fractured global present.
Like Just Do It, it was also symptomatic in its power to compel, to cultivate likes and shares.
It could have been the tagline for a drop on Instagram, Twitter, or TikTok Shop… catching our short attention span in a world of hyper-connectivity, click-commerce and hyper-isolation. Here we are foreign in our own homes (are they even ours any more?) and are strangers on infinite scroll… flooded with images of disposable elsewheres and others, alien even to ourselves.
l’enfer, c’est les autres
Nobody wants this anymore. We have reached a critical mass of despair with the false promise of mass “reach” and hyper-connectivity.
Locals Everywhere is not a denial of this reality.
It is a response to this despair, and a proposal for both an exit and a path forward…
Away from our self-imposed terms of estrangement.
To be local is not a matter of origin.
It’s a matter of attention,
Of intention,
Of how we choose to show up.
To be local is to participate, to be in relation, to stay proximate, whether digitally or physically, through care and affinity, rather than claim.
Locals Everywhere names an interior exodus.
A movement away from the algorithmic public square, away from mass dissemination as goal, and toward something quieter, more intimate. To crave and respect limits. To see and integrate with technology as an extension of intimacy, instead of “using” “it” as a tool for hacking our attention span.
A distributed intimacy.
A post-geographic kinship.
A refusal to define ourselves by displacement, and an invitation to begin again through presence and connection.
This is not utopia. It is something more fragile, and more possible.
A politics of coherence.
A small, glowing warmth.
A shared finitude.
To live here, on this fifth shore, is to relinquish mastery in favor of mutuality. It is to recognize the instability and porousness of identity, not as crisis, but as condition.
To speak with voices that are not ours alone.
Here, authorship dissolves into relation.
Voice becomes encounter.
Intimacy is not proximity… but coherence.
We are alone, together.
We are local, everywhere.
We are not finished.
Imaginary of an Image: On Tanmu’s Recent Paintings
At one moment I couldn’t help but stare at Tanmu’s Dolly the sheep. Among her intricately executed work, neither the composition nor the technique of Dolly was particularly remarkable, except that unlike most others, it gazes back.
It was then that I started examining the affective and epistemic formations in Tanmu’s work; my insensitivity was not because I knew little about her practice—from painting and drawing to printmaking and multimedia installations—or artistic approach, but that I had always felt genuinely close to the images, despite their objective guise.