When you enter the exhibition hall
See the changes of the society
The ups and downs of life
You can feel other’s desire and agony
Then you make a turn
Maybe you have a pineapple bun with butter
It brings you back to daily life
It’s like a theater of life
From as early as 1995
My stage drama at The Affiliated High School of Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts
To my AR work in 2021
All are concentrated in the exhibition hall
I was born in 1978
In the 1980s, Guangzhou
Is the frontier city of reform and opening up
When I was making “Who’s Utopia”
In a factory on the outskirts of Guangzhou
There were a lot of materials
About the relation between worker and semi-automated production
And between human body and machine
Such as a female worker
She had a peacock dance dress
In her dorm
I asked her if she would dance in front of the camera
She agreed
Turning the dreams of workers
Into a theater in the factory
The reality is rather complicated
Guangdong as the backstage of factories worldwide
Went through a lot of pain during the transition
Hence the takeoff moment of China later
I’ve been following her work for nearly 20 years
We are both friends and workmates
Cao Fei’s creation
Presented in the form of image
But behind every work
There is huge amount of research and investigation
Such a work
Was rather rare in the entire contemporary Chinese art
Fast forward to recent years
She made “Asia One”
It is probably the biggest logistics center in the Yangtze River Delta
Kinda like a science fiction
Since 2016, 2017
A lot of industries have introduced unmanned production
Therefore in “Asia One”
There is a couple and robots
In “Whose Utopia”
You see the plants packed with workers
But on this set
There were machines and goods
So where did those people go?
Before the Beijing Olympics
Friends from all walks of life went up north
And I went with them
I came to Beijing
Before I could settle down
To fit in the life here
I accidently came across “Second Life” 60 00:03:20,480 --> 00:03:24,360 One of the earliest social platforms
Similar to “Animal Crossing” more popular these days
It’s a virtual community where members can interact
“China Tracy”
Is my first avatar on Second Life
So every day I lived online for 8 hours
And later I created “RMB City”
A virtual city like this
About tens of thousands of square meters
It is a symbol of contemporary urbanization in China
You can see construction sites, unfinished buildings, villages in cities, and CBDs
Years later
Like the National Stadium after a blizzard
A combination of imagination and reality
I remember in 2007
We're at Art Basel in Miami
She organized a presale on the exhibition
Of the properties in the RMB City
I didn’t quite understand it
Artist is a prophet
From a very personal
And creative perspective
They foresee the future direction
Being immersed in virtual reality for four, five years
Is a long enough period of time for me
When I came back to reality
I suddenly realized that I was the mother of two
The next work was “Haze and Fog”
Back to cruel reality
“You saw nothing in La Town”
“Not a thing”
“I saw it all”
“All”
“La Town” is a model
1:87 model of human beings
Presenting a miniature version of the end of the world
The world falls into a crisis
And it creates an unsettling atmosphere
Since 2015
I started studying Hongxia Cinema
And it continued for the following five to six years
The institution that Hongxia Cinema is affiliated with
Is the Beijing Radio Factory
Which produced the first electronic computer in China
When I arrived there
There was nothing left
All that you can see
Is an artistic restoration
We measured the physical dimensions
Of the cinema by hand
Rebuild a virtual reality of the cinema
Audience put on VR goggles
And it brings them back to the past of Hongxia Cinema
On the screen
“The Eternal Wave”, a black and white film from 1958 is playing
Disorientation in time and space
The final exhibition presents
A history of Chinese electronic industry
In a replicated cinema
The beach extends to the edge of the screen
The film “New Star”
Is a make-up film
It tells a story about a scientist
Who transforms his son into a string of digit
When developing time machine
And his son is locked in the computer forever
Through this story
I want to arouse some thinking about time and space
The relation between advance and sacrifice
The relation between personal feelings and grand narrative
I used to follow the trends closely
Pop culture
Hip-hop
When I was a junior in university
I had my first formal work
As such
I became an artist unintentionally
I often say she is the first young Chinese artist
Because there were a group of artists when she first entered the field
She entered as a young beginner
And she has come a long way since then
In front of us
Is a unique epitome
Of China’s past
It’s a personal epitome
Time and space overlap
Shown on such a complex stage of time
And it is rich in feelings and complexity