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Li Zhenhua for "EIKON Magazine for Photography
and Media Art", No 54, 2006 Media Art in Beijing and Its Links to Austrian Media
Art Media Art in Beijing and Its Links to Austrian Media Art Li Zhenhua Historical View Beijing's situation is probably
the most complex and diverse, for it takes on a special model function
as a result of politics and economics. It used to be said, "Beijing
will no longer be Beijing without the Hutongs. Today's skyscrapers could
be from any city in the world." The Beginnings of New Chinese Media Art To date there has not been any shared presentation of Chinese media art, with the exception of the first Digital Art Festival, organized in 2001 by Qiu Zhijie, Wu Meichun, and Li Zhenhua and held in Loft Art Space. As an independent discipline, media art still lacks autonomy and everydayness. The 2005 exhibition With a Loud Voice, curated by Ou Ning/Ji Ji Jiang Jian, brought from the viewpoint of the designers fresh air and a new look at contemporary art, exerted a direct influence on setting the theme of the 2006 Shanghai Biennial, More Than Design. The dynamism in the expansion of the content and the direction of media art in contrast to contemporary Chinese art is slowly becoming clearer. The Beginnings of Beijing Cubic Art Center, 798 Factory, 2004 When I met Yao Bin for the
first time in Japan, he was still a contemporary Chinese artist living
in Japan. During my Tokyo exhibition Before the Window, we got to know
each other better, and I told him about the situation of contemporary
art in China. Yao Bin showed a great interest in the current situation
of contemporary Chinese art, not least because my exhibition focused on
media art. We developed a plan for an exhibition of his works that was
to be shown simultaneously in Beijing and Tokyo. Just before the end of
2004, we saw each other once again in a studio in the 798 Factory, where
his works were being shown. He wanted find a place of his own to create
new media art. Since Spring 2005, Yao Bin has had such a space, the first
one in 798 Factory to concentrate on media art. Teaching on media art
since 2000 provided a glimpse of the exchange of international media art
on a high level. Yao Bin's space signalized a deeper engagement in the
exchange of media art, and numerous interactive media projects slowly
became public. The establishment of such a space was accompanied by some
concrete problems, for example the financing and choice of projects. To
solve such problems, Yao Bin made genuine compromises, developing flexible
methods, and in so doing accepted some projects that did not fit into
his development concept. But even under such difficult circumstances,
Yao Bin's Beijing Cubic Art Center does not fit the overall trend towards
commercialization. In several special projects, the Beijing Cubic Art
Center laid the foundation for the existing diversity of contemporary
art and its representation, thus creating at the same time the basis for
the development of Chinese media artist. Moon: Electric Language
The sound project initiated by British Council also chose Beijing Cubic Art Center as the place to carry out the sound recordings and performances of the British artists Peter Cusak and David Toop. The experimentation with sound formats and the playful exchange as well as the performances as well as the projects simultaneously carried out elsewhere by the two artists Brian Eno and Clive Bell opened new possibilities for interaction between music and art in Beijing. In this project, sound stood at the center of experimentation, at the same time it was also an important bearer of information for social culture. Zhang Ga Zhang Ga's work stretched over five different countries and cities, with Beijing Cubic Art Center as a performance site. Each day many people took part in the project, for the work was transmitted to public sites in five different countries, and in this way the portraits became transmitters of information in various sites and spaces. This work is interesting in two senses-on the one hand, due to the interaction between private and pubic space, and at the same time due to its transregional visual character. Multicultural backgrounds are dispersed using visual editing techniques, making the visual transmission more interesting. In self-expression by way of reflection of feelings and action as well as the space behind, images were fed from various spaces and sites into the net and then again dispersed to new sites, thus creating interactivity. In this way, the technological possibilities of future cultural forms of communication like web cam culture and web blogging are alluded to.
The title of this work can
be read as "Now Here" or "Nowhere," two terms referring
to geographic coordinates. The innovative aspect of this project has to
do with the use of media by the artists. Sylvia Eckermann and Gerald Nestler's
ideas circle around the playful aspect of the media; they underscore constantly
the playful element, and the importance of combining acts/scenes/transitions
in their work. Sylvia Eckermann is responsible for Konzept und Game Art,
Gerald Nestler for concept and research, Oliver Irschitz for interface,
and Christof Cargnelli for Sound-Komposition The project n o w h e r
e - ein Welt Raum Spiel is outstanding in both a technological and artistic
sense. It occupies a three-dimensional space where the player navigates
through the work without the aid of the devices often needed in the virtual
environment, like a mouse, keyboard, are required. The project also has
disposed of the camera or gloves often needed for virtual realities. It
is thus much easier for the beholder to submerge himself in the virtual
reality of the project, for he or she simply needs to move his hands in
space: this movement then controls the content. Since this project is
based on a first-person-shooter computer game, the imaginative space is
comprised of a virtual space in which all information llinked to the Gläserne
Kette emerge due to the 3D motions of the beholder, who floats like an
electronic figure through this world of information and data that has
its origins in modern architecture. A large part of the information used
in the letters-the texts, images, poems, and models-are transformed into
virtual reality. All the facts from architecture, philosophy, sociology,
and art that the Gläserne Kette explored formed the starting point
of this work by Sylvia Eckermann, Gerald Nestler, Oliver Irschitz, and
Christof Cargnelli. The technology is thus used to present the ideas of
this group, but at the same time this is accompanied by the playful actions
of the beholder and developed further, along with the original texts presented
in English. Knowledge is in this work is passed on through the senses
of feeling, hearing, and touch. Diverse World and Diverse Future Bruno Taut's Glaspalast (Glass Palace), presented
at the 1914 Werkbundaustellung in Cologne, was constructed of iridescent
glass panels. Taut was inspired by the work of Paul Scheerbart-not an
architect, but a writer. Inspired by him Taut created an iridescent and
multi-layered architecture by using modern construction materials. On
the surfaces of this glass palace, sentences by Scheerbart were engraved:
for example, "colored glass extinguishes hate" (Farbiges Glas
löscht den Hass). The new construction materials and techniques met
the demands of Bruno Taut's unusual thinking; his designs would continue
to spark debate in years to come, for it was one of the paradigmatic examples
of architectural expressionism. It is said the Bruno Taut with his utopian
concepts realized the dream of all architects to change the world, and
thus the world of human thought.
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