The Ghosts of Avant-Garde: A New Generation of Chinese Media Artists

From CIFRA: Discover the rising talents of contemporary Chinese media art. This collection showcases the work of 13 young artists, introducing you to their creative processes and techniques. From Rhett Tsai: This section features thirteen notable young media artists born in mainland China. The oldest among them was born in 1987, and the youngest in 1998. While this may seem like a very young group, they represent the core force of current Chinese media art. Among them are winners and finalists of Ars Electronica, the Lumen Prize, and the Future Generation Art Prize; teachers at art colleges both in China and abroad; as well as some of the earliest practitioners of VR art, audio-visual art, and AI art in China. This is a group of artists worth paying attention to. They grew up in the 1990s and early 2000s, a period when mainland China was on the cusp of rapid development and receiving significant influence from foreign cultures. Various social ideologies were fermenting, the economy was booming, the Chinese internet was being established, and the first generation of internet culture and video game culture was self-shaping. It was an era characterized by globalization, openness, and awakening. According to the youngest artist in this group, Shao Lihao, his introduction to media art came from watching a collaboration between the group Perfume and Daito Manabe on China Central Television Channel TV Guide as a child. Because of their upbringing during this unique period, two creative threads are evident in the work of these artists: one is the exploration and reflection on cultural history and local memories of mainland China and its surrounding regions, and the other is the immediate response to and creative use of emerging media and internet culture. Equally important is the fact that their growth as artists coincided with the period when Chinese media art began to construct itself and develop rapidly. During this period, media art education in China began to emerge and flourish. Many categories of media art, such as audiovisual art, VR art, sound art, AI art, and others, started to have an impact in China for the first time. Many of the artists in this collection have become pioneers of these art forms in China. Those who grew up during this pivotal historical era and devoted themselves to media art are the focus of this section. Many thanks to all the artists who participated in this project, they are: Axl Le Yi (乐毅), Cao Shu (曹澍), Guangli Liu (刘广隶), In Vitro (肖幸, 胡曦月), Lihao Shao (邵立昊), Rhett Tsai (蔡宇潇), Uchan Sun (孙羽茜), Wan Senman (温辰旻), Weidi Zhang (张味迪), Zhipeng Wang (王志鹏), Zimin Yang (杨子敏), and Ziyang Wu (武子杨).