Click Play Button for Audio Tour by Yin Peet
Container Man
Artist: Yin Peet and Viktor Lois
The anchor of our museum is this piece called the CONTAINER MAN Music Stage, this is the first collaborative work between Yin and Viktor.
Every component you see on the stage are musical instruments. Some have one or two strings. On the far right is a seven-string instrument powered by hand-cranking; on the far left, an eight-string instrument powered by bicycling. At the center, a large wheel holds fifty-six strings. It can be tuned to a song and played while suspended, or lowered to the ground and ridden like a bicycle. Together, the twelve instruments form a fully integrated electronic orchestra. Six embedded cameras add multimedia projections during performances.
And here is the surprise: everything you see can be folded inside. Close the stage, and Container Man becomes an ordinary forty-foot shipping container—mobile and ready to travel anywhere in the world.
The idea began in 1994 with Yin’s attempt to create an abstract human figure for the twenty-first century—a body defined through sound rather than muscle and anatomy. In 2002, Yin invited Viktor Lois to Taiwan for our first collaboration. Fascinated by Taiwan’s industrial landscape and what he called “Taiwan gadgets”—motors, gears, bicycle and motorcycle parts—Viktor transformed these everyday mechanical objects into musical instruments, becoming the organs inside Container Man’s body.
In 2002, Container Man toured Taiwan, staging seventeen performances combining poetry, music, and dance. In 2005, it traveled to Germany and toured Croatia, Serbia, Hungary, and Poland, involving thirty-six international artists. In each country, musicians gave Container Man a different voice—from heavy metal in Croatia and folk music in Serbia to experimental rock in Hungary and experimental classical music in Poland.
Since 2008, Container Man has made its permanent home here as the centerpiece of the Museum’s main hall. We still periodically bring it to life with concerts on this stage.
If you would like to receive announcements of future performances and events, please leave your email in the notebook at the entrance desk.