NON-Belief

Do you believe?

The belief built upon fictional realities has enabled human societies to organize and collaborate throughout historical evolution. Under Taiwan’s rapid technological and urban development, TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, Ltd.), high speed, and the pursuit of efficiency have become contemporary “beliefs,” driving and transforming the world’s operations. Focusing on a geopolitically precarious future, these beliefs are upheld by Taiwan’s collective dedication. As we deeply reflect on the environmental, water resources, and energy costs embedded within these beliefs, Taiwan offers embodied intelligens in its architecture, examining and understanding how life adapts and transforms to establish a resilient and self-sustaining island republic in our collectively uncertain and fragile future.

Not only do we believe in them individually, but we also collectively believe in them.

Yuval Noah Harari, in his book Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, discusses how Homo sapiens have cooperated and organized by imagining and creating “fictional realities,” which have allowed humans to collaborate in larger, more flexible groups and exchange knowledge and intelligence. This ability has enabled humanity to adapt and dominate the earth in various uncertain environments. These fictional narratives and concepts—such as nations, corporations, money, religion, human rights, and legal systems—do not exist in nature, yet they are crucial to the formation, order, and governance of societies. Through collective belief and practice, humans have constructed complex social structures.

Under the concept of “non-site” by land artist Robert Smithson, “NON-Belief” questions and critiques Taiwan’s unique spatial concepts and values, as well as its belief systems. It explores the reconstruction or reevaluation of Taiwan’s beliefs and understanding of society, environment, nature, and culture, revealing the narratives embedded between “belief” and “NON-Belief.” In contrast to Taiwan’s unstable, drifting macro scale, the narrative adopts a binary, yet microscopic, perspective that sparks dialogue and transformation. This invites the audience to reflect on belief systems and ideas while exploring the uncertainty of the real world and its meaning.

With the rapid development of the internet, computing technology, and media, the flow of capital and goods under global capitalism and consumerism, as well as the sharing and interaction of knowledge and information through cloudbased social platforms, a paradigm shift has sparked dynamic changes, leading to the unraveling of established belief systems. In this context, nationalism and national identity challenge the fictional realities of globalization and the state; technological development exacerbates economic inequality; decentralized monetary systems aim to replace traditional currencies controlled by governments and central banks; the diversification and secularization of religious beliefs occur simultaneously; many traditional cultural and religious customs come into conflict with modern values; digital surveillance and data collection pose increasing threats to privacy and freedom; and the existing sustainable development models face crises amid climate change.

The Allegory of Good Government The Allegory of Bad Government
Source：https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Allegory_of_Good_and_Bad_Government

In Ambrogio Lorenzetti’s frescoes The Allegory of Good Government ( upper ) and The Allegory of Bad Government ( lower ) in the Palazzo Pubblico in Siena, he presents the notion that the stability of society comes from the collective belief in justice, rule of law, harmony, and prosperity, while the opposite—corruption and disintegration—leads to order’s collapse and suffering. Combining these two concepts—idealized, propagandistic, and the complex realities that are reduced to binary terms— the two frescoes are folded and juxtaposed to form a semitransparent slice in the center of the Governor’s Palace. This creates a state where the beliefs between two realities constantly shift. A series of unique architectural proposals respond to the narrative and viewpoints between “belief” and “NON-Belief,” shaping a collective formed through multiple indirect, decentralized, self-organized, deviated, and microscopic structures.