26.12.10
Ai Weiwei in the wall street journal
http://www.metropolism.com/fresh-signals/ai-weiwei-in-the-wall-street-jou-1/
11/02/2010
By AI WEIWEI
China may have become the second-biggest economy in the world, but its political system remains stuck in the early 20th century. Even as Chinese people's horizons are broadening, the government clings to a one-party ideology that is hostile to personal freedom. Technology is making possible greater expression and political participation, but that has only prompted the authorities to work harder to stifle these impulses.
All this makes Google's decision to stop censoring to protect its China operations especially significant. First, it is encouraging for the Chinese people to see that a leading Internet company recognizes that censorship is a violation of basic human rights and values. Such controls damage the core ethos underpinning the Internet.
To stand up and speak out in a society in which those values are under constant attack requires courage and deserves moral support. Politicians and enterprises should not trade those basic rights for profits, because any short-term deal will only lead to long-term losses.
In several cases the judicial system has used information from an accused person's email as evidence of attempting to overthrow the government. This is a clear case showing how an authoritarian state can use technology not to benefit social life and improve political participation, but rather to violate the privacy of individuals and control their thinking, communication and expression.
From last October, I found that two of my Gmail accounts were being hacked by unknown intruders, and my Gmail messages were being automatically transferred to an unknown address. Other activists have reported the same intrusions to their Gmail accounts.
Most discouraging to those of us who are fighting for increased freedom is the tendency for developed nations to lower the bar to please China. They make excuses not to concern themselves with violations of human rights. To espouse universal values and then blind oneself to China's active hostility to those values is irresponsible and naïve.
When American officials come to China with a pretty smile and the soft tone of a so-called "friendly gesture," this only tells us how fragile and vulnerable these moral standards can be. It makes the people still in the struggle feel disappointed.
In recent months China has tightened its censorship over every medium, from the Internet to the mainstream media to instant messaging over mobile phones. This is the mark of a government that has lost confidence in its own ideology and is nervous about its power to control its own people. Stopping the free exchange of information ultimately hampers economic growth and opportunity, which is the Chinese government's main claim to legitimacy. The question then is how a state based on limiting information flows and freedom of speech can remain powerful. And if it can, what kind of monster it will become.
Mr. Ai is a Beijing-based artist and activist.
23.12.10
Tate
http://aiweiwei.tate.org.uk/content/635326970001
For Ai Weiwei, voicing opinions and communicating with one another is of great importance.
From October 2010 to May 2011, visitors to Sunflower Seeds can record a video; either asking him their question or answering one from him. All the videos will appear here and Ai Weiwei will respond to a selection of questions.
Gabriel Orozco at Tate Modern: the curator’s blog | Tate Blog
Gabriel Orozco at Tate Modern: the curator’s blog | Tate Blog
Gabriel Orozco
19 January – 25 April 2011
Creative, playful and inventive, Gabriel Orozco creates art in the streets, his apartment or wherever he is inspired. Born in Mexico but working across the globe, Orozco is renowned for his endless experimentation with found objects, which he subtly and playfully alters.
His sculptures, often made of everyday things that have interested him, reveal new ways of looking at something familiar. A skull with a geometric pattern carefully drawn onto it, a classic Citroën DS car which the artist sliced into thirds, removing the central part to exaggerate its streamlined design, and a scroll filled with numbers cut out of a phone book are just some of his unique sculptures.
Orozco’s photos are also on display, capturing the beauty of fleeting moments: water collecting in a punctured football, tins of cat food arranged on top of watermelons in a supermarket, or condensed breath disappearing from the surface of a piano show Orozco’s eye for simple but surprising and powerful images.
His art also shows his fascination with game-playing, for example a billiard table with no pockets and a pendulum-like hanging ball, or Knights Running Endlessly, an extended chess board filled with an army of knights, both of which are well-known games to which he has added an element of futility. This kind of unexpected twist makes Orozco’s work interesting to both contemporary art lovers and also anyone who wants an unusual and captivating art experience.
Global exhibition sponsor: Fundación Televisa and the National Council for Culture and the Arts (CONACULTA), Mexico.
19.12.10
Wang Du
Par la suite, Wang Du s’est consacré aux événements les plus sensationnels relayés par les médias, principalement ceux relevant du star system de la culture populaire, mais aussi ceux appartenant aux conflits géopolitiques. Il poursuit sa collecte d’images provenant de supports médiatiques variés pour en faire de grands collages. Ces images assemblées, allant de la banale anecdote à l’événement politique capital, de l’histoire vraie à la fiction, deviennent à leur tour les scénarii, voire les encyclopédies, d’un monde « réinventé » par le biais des médias eux-mêmes. Le travail de Wang Du, s’il est ouvertement provocateur, n’est pas moins amusant et visuellement rafraîchissant, que ce soit en termes de contenu – les images qu’il choisit pour constituer ses collages du monde médiatique – ou en termes de formes – le vocabulaire sculptural, l’échelle et la disposition dans l’espace, etc. Dans cette tension entre provocation et divertissement, on peut sentir une claire méfiance envers les relations artificielles entre image et sens tel qu’elles sont propagées par les médias, afin d’exercer leur pouvoir hégémonique.
Cette méfiance révèle une position tout aussi ouvertement provocatrice et avant-gardiste qui ne risque certainement pas d’être accusée de « politiquement correct.
Texte de Hou Hanru tiré de Wang Du Magazine « Je veux être un média »
10.12.10
7.12.10
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)