A new generation of Chinese artists are defying stereotypes
Forget mountains and rivers. At Tai Kwun, creatives transform glitchy algorithms, viral robots and memory into their medium
Last October, artist Wu Ziyang travelled to Kyiv, where he learned an unexpected rule of survival: if you find yourself under a drone attack, put two walls between you and the machine. Wu had flown into Moldova and taken a train to Ukraine’s capital, after being shortlisted for an award from the PinchukArtCentre.
During the ride, three engineers heading home to Ukraine from France shared stories with him about the oligarch who founded the contemporary art centre, then quizzed Wu, who hails from Xuzhou, Jiangsu province, on BYD’s electric cars, tech giant Xiaomi and how China viewed Russia.
Upon his arrival in Ukraine, Wu discovered that the largest category of artificial intelligence simulation in the country was war. Before going into combat, people played games, in the form of training simulations. Coming back, they did the same, revisiting scenarios. Over the 10 days he was in Kyiv, there were two drone attacks, one of which saw him hiding in a bathroom.
“Of course, I didn’t do anything except watch Douyin [the Chinese version of TikTok], but the air-raid sirens were blaring,” says Wu, 35.
Visiting nightclubs, he found that locals had Telegram alert systems warning them of where conscription trucks were headed to avoid being dragged away while partying.
His montages echo The Sims, the noughties game where characters drift through a stylised, often surreal domestic world, never quite touching the ground. In one scene, the perspective shifts to what might be mistaken for a surveillance camera mounted on a bathroom ceiling, as Wu flails between the toilet and bath.