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New media art exhibition in Beijing showcases life extension

Following the groundbreaking Synthetic Times: Media Art China 2008, an international new media exhibition which became a cultural highlight of the Beijing 2008 Olympics, the National Art Museum of China (NAMOC) in Beijing is presenting its second triennial, Translife, which showcases 53 artworks by 88 artists from 23 countries.

Three main themes, Sensorium of the Extraordinary, Sublime of the Liminal and Zone of the Impending, as well as a special project, Weather Tunnel, in a separate nearby plaza, form the basis of this exciting and interactive NAMOC exhibition.

"The extension from the synthetic, in the augural exhibition, to the prefix 'Trans' this time round reflects a shift from a macroscopic bird's eye view to a microscopic attentive gaze, an exploration from the phenomenological exterior to the essential quality of the interior," explained Fan Di'an, NAMOC's director.

"[Translife is] a philosophical contemplation on the notion of life in the context of an increasingly technologically driven society."

Translife attempts to remind the audience about the relation between humankind and nature in the face of abnormal global weather conditions and environmental crisis, said press officer Yang Zi.

Zhang Ga, the curator, elaborated on its significance, which "goes beyond the limits of corporality to an extended potential, to eliminate the boundary between the living and the non-living in order for possible new forms of life to emerge, calling for new attention to other species."

Zhang is also a professor of information Art at Academy of Arts and Design, Tsinghua University in Beijing, and a current visiting scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab.

"In this exhibit, art, philosophy, ecology, activism and politics exchange their repertoire, in order to redefine the participants, the aims, the forums and the emotions of political involvement," Zhang noted.

Weather report

Designed by renowned Chinese architect Ma Yansong, Weather Tunnel displays 13 artworks.

"It acts as a presentation of an immediate, intuitive revealing of complex, otherwise incomprehensible, environmental data, epitomizing the living conditions humanity faces and highlighting concerns about the Earth on which our life depends," Yang explained.

An interactive multi-sensory eco-installation artwork, Hou, created by Wang Yuyang, workshop MeatMedia and Chinese-Swiss artist Jeffrey Huang, serves as an "alienated organism" and projects weather data culled from all over the world onto its body.

"The data can be understood as the life signs of a chaotic and lively ecosystem," observed Wang. "The inanimate body of Hou, fabricated in a physical and mechanical way, transforms into the sensing body, resonating in reaction to weather data."

@#$%^… is another interactive installation dealing with data, and aims to make abstract information more accessible through "data sonification."

Made of silicone, electronic and mechanical parts, recorded sounds and a digital synthesizer, @#$%^… embodies the bustling sounds found in urban areas.

"The project was derived from the view that environments are self-contained systems, where the individual and the whole are merged together into a single organic cell," said Tian Li, one of the designers along with Guo Haoyun, Guo Yao and Vivian Xu.

"The individual's perception is skewed by his or her surroundings, and is unable to completely break free of the environment that they have become a part of.

"This device utilizes environmental data collected by sensors in various cities throughout the world, and maps this information accordingly into ambient city noises," he continued.

Audiences will be provided with stethoscopes to probe its sonic environment and listen to the 'cries' suppressed and entrapped within the device. "Life, through senses, is manifested," Zhang said.

Sensory enlightenment

Sensorium of the Extraordinary meanwhile probes systems that engender "new sensations beyond the ordinary and the perceived."

More specifically, this means "the technologically expanded body space and its relation to the mediated cultural sphere."

So, in Nemo Conservatorium (pictured, left), Lawrence Malstaf conjures up a transcendent velocity which the participant takes a seat and, in no time, a whirlwind (simulated by Styrofoam beads) escalates into a full stormy blast.

In the center of this fierce vortex of wind is peace and tranquility. "An otherworldly sensation penetrates and seduces participants with cultural solidity and psychological intensity," according to Zhang.

"A renegotiation of the concept of life and a reordering of the taxonomy of nature may well begin with the imprudence of artists' imaginations, in the intrepid spirit of unbridled naivety, by irritating the elegancy of reason and offending the supremacy of subjectivity," said Zhang.

Finnish artist Terike Haapoja displays her Anatomy of Landscape l-11, which consists of a large, painting-like landscape. As the viewer comes closer, it becomes evident that the 'painting' is actually alive and made of plants and soil.

"An automatic watering, ventilation, heating and lighting system is visible from the other side... The light changes, according to the time, from sunrise to sunset," explained Haapoja.

In the last part, Zone of the Impending, Zhang invited the artists to "intervene" in the current ecological crisis by having them, in his words, "propose alternative strategies to the impending dangers that loom over human existence."

For example, "Greg Niemeyer and Chris Chafe illuminated the [problem of] carbon dioxide concentration by engaging people in a sonic ripening process titled Tomato Quintet, a heuristic way to educate participants about ozone depletion," Zhang said.

"Translife encapsulates a breadth of issues entwined in innovative thought processes evolved over multiple histories," concluded Mike Stubbs, professor of Liverpool John Moores University and CEO of Foundation for Art and Creative Technology (FACT), which collaborated with NAMOC.