Yuan was born in Taipei, 1965. He started creating video art in 1984 and remains a pioneer in this category in Taiwan. He graduated National Institute of the Arts (later renamed as Taipei National University of the Arts). He started creating video art in 1984, remains a pioneer in this category in Taiwan, and a prominent figure in the international artist community. After being awarded with the first place in the 5th fine art exhibition of Taipei County in 1993, he accepted the DAAD scholarship and started his further education in Germany, and remain awarded for the following 4 consecutive years. In 1994, he studied in the institute of Media Arts, Frankfurt, Germany. After he is awarded with the Diploma in Media Arts at Staatliche Hochschule fuer Gestaltung Karlsruhe, Germany in 1997, he returned to Taiwan for good. In 1989, he received Golden Harvest Award and Golden Video Award in 1989, first place in the Fine Art Exhibition of Taipei County in 1993, Taipei Award of the Fine Art Exhibition of Taipei City in 1997, and Special Jury Price of the 1st Art future 2000 by the Acer Digital Art Centre. He has participated in important international exhibitions such as Taipei Biennial, Singapore Biennale, Liverpool Biennial, Guangzhou triennial, and Taiwan Pavilion in La Biennale di Venezia. He now assumes the position as an associate professor in School of Film and New media, Taipei National University of the Arts, exploring new front tiers of art as an educator.

With the interactive video installment, YUAN Goang-Ming seek for the answers to questions realted to existence and nihility. Reasons of Insomnia presents in a quasi-theatric style, connecting vision, audio, and animation, reflecting the quest towar the meaning of live, and those possible paronid and insecurity might occurred to an individual when he or she experiences zero gravity. Insomnia is intertwined with lucid dreams, where conscioousness tangled with subconsciousness. This work is stylised with his personal color, yet succeds in depicting the dillemma of modern being.

Melancholy is a state of mind that cannot be inferred, representing the confusions and loss of the meaning in existence. Through media art, YUAN Goang-Ming tries to build a swinging, ambiguous bridge between one’s internal world and the external reality. What he really cares is not the advancement of technologies, but how art can express the workings of mind and reflect the truths of things. Mirage and reality, in the field of visual context, have often been seen as in flow. Yuan is one of the pioneers that introduce such visual creativity into Taiwanese artist community. As one of his early works, Out of Position, he smashes the boundary between reality and illusion with a projected gold fish on a real white china dish.

Yuan’s works are often inspired by the daily surroundings and would include everyday experiences into his romantic video narratives, namely, alienating those would have been familiar to viewers, as to render profound aesthetic strengths. The Reason for Insomnia in 1998, has reenacted insomnia that infers to the state of mind of contemporary ambiguity, paranoid, insecurity, desire, and nihility, and therefore becomes one of the classics in Taiwanese video art. In 2001, he started to develop the series of the Disqualified which included pieces such as City Disqualified and Human Disqualified. By compressing hundreds of photos taken in different times, Yuan achieved to present reality that is almost surreal: the desert lies within the essence of city space, and everything would eventually fall into emptiness. One of his works in 2007, Disappearing Landscape - The Reason to be a Leaf made direct inquiries against the complicated symbiosis between artificialities and nature. Started from a strong sense of reflection, Yuan’s works allow viewers to have an in-depth panorama upon the state of being floating, undetermined for different individuals and communities in terms of identity and essence.