Founded at 9 French Place, Shoreditch, London — FRENCH PLACE enters its next chapter in Milan, where our programme extends across exhibitions, an artist residency, and research–driven initiatives that support deep engagement with contemporary practice.
Founded at 9 French Place, Shoreditch, London — FRENCH PLACE enters its next chapter in Milan, where our programme extends across exhibitions, an artist residency, and research–driven initiatives that support deep engagement with contemporary practice.
VIDEO PROGRAMME,
SEASON 26 EPISODE 1, RILEY TU,
Prelude & Quantised Bits of Light till It Added to a Whole00.00.25—00.00.25
Giclée print on Hahnemühle Photo Rag Metallic, aluminium frame
45 x 80 cm, Edition of 3 + 2 AP, courtesy FRENCH PLACE & the artist
Giclée print on Hahnemühle Photo Rag Metallic, aluminium frame
45 x 80 cm, Edition of 3 + 2 AP, courtesy FRENCH PLACE & the artist
Prelude, 2024
Single channel colour 4K video with stereo sound, 3 minutes 20 seconds
Prelude serves as the conceptual foundation for Quantised Bits of Light till It Added to a Whole, reimagines the birth of a cyborg, placing the viewer within its cyborg’s body. The piece explores the moment of awakening, resistance, and self-awareness within a programmed system.
Set within a digital landscape, the newly formed cyborg encounters an enigmatic creator who questions its existence. Rather than responding with obedience, the cyborg meets these inquiries with sarcastic, defiant movements, challenging the authority that seeks to define it. This moment of friction—between machine logic and emergent selfhood—sets the stage for the deeper exploration of autonomy, agency, and perception in Quantised Bits of Light till It Added to a Whole.
Quantised Bits of Light till It Added to a Whole, 2024
Single channel colour 4K video with stereo sound, 5 minutes 56 seconds
Building on the theme of subjectivity introduced in Prelude, this work places digital bodies within a more complex narrative landscape. Grounded in Glitch Feminism, Sick Woman Theory and A Cyborg Manifesto, this work reflects on identity and self-representation in digital space, centring themes of politicised care and resistance to algorithmic control. It critiques the gendered construction of technology, reimagining digital bodies while examining the intersections of technology, gender, and resilience. The temporal disjunction between physical and virtual worlds demonstrates the complexity of constructing identity within digital environments, where embodiment is always hybrid and in flux.
The work employs strategies of deconstruction and dematerialisation through which cyborg bodies reclaim agency over their narratives. Glitch aesthetics and fragmented storytelling are used to surface hidden traumas and articulate the tensions between agency and constraint, vulnerability and resilience in cyberspace. With the dialogues with the creator, Tu invites viewers to reflect on the politics of representation and digital embodiment.
Riley Tu
Riley Tu is a London-based artist primarily working with video and sound. Her work examines body politics, self-representation, and algorithmic resistance. Drawing on feminist theory and cyborg identities, she uses 3D animation to explore how technology shapes, fragments, and reconstructs gendered bodies. Her practice engages with speculative fiction to question how communication and intelligence evolve within artificial systems, probing the boundaries between the human and the non-human.
Tu holds an MFA in Fine Art from Goldsmiths, University of London, and her work has been shown internationally, including at BFI Southbank, Oberhausen, Kyiv ISFF, RIFF, and Salón ACME. She was also featured in the touring program The One Minutes Series: Mirroring (Netherlands, 2024) and the British Council International Touring Programme, and has received grants from the Taiwan Ministry of Culture, Taipei City Government, and the National Culture and Arts Foundation. She was awarded Made in Taiwan: Young Artist Discovery 2025, the Taiwan Ministry of Culture’s national selection for Taiwanese artists.