Gao Yutao, “Dialogue Series – A Moonlit Night on the Spring,” single channel video, 2’23”, 2020, courtesy of the artist
“Reisen in Abwesenheit des Körpers” an exhibition organized by Shanghai Duolun Museum of Modern Art is on show through July 16.
The German title, “travelling with the absence of body” in English, raises the question of how we understand our “being” in the context of the technological age.
The exhibition invites eight groups of Chinese and German artists including B_ in bad weather (Wang Haiqing & Shen Nan), Gao Yutao, Hedda Schattanik & Roman Szczesny, Jana Kerima Stolzer + Lex Rütten and Li Tingwei, and centers on the way of being in the age of artificial intelligence and digitalization and delves into the imagination of future life through photographs and video installations.
The works in the exhibition are all recent creations.
On one hand, the works constitute the artists’ responses to the times by means of different themes such as the ghosts of the digital age, short videos, the experience of consumerism, nostalgia or labor, reflecting the imagination of the absence of physical experience within the future life.
On the other, by comparing the issues that young artists in China and Germany focus on, the exhibition explores the different perspectives of understanding the world under the same time and space.
Hedda Schattanik & Roman Szczesny, “Apartment Monologue,” single channel video, 10’27”, 2020, courtesy of the artist.
Video installations form part of the exhibition.
For example, Datta, a crossover artist living and working in China, creates a programmed video installation based on Douyin to discuss the mechanism of likes, while Gao Yutao, an artist living and studying in Düsseldorf, Germany, chants “A Moonlit Night on the Spring” with Siri by the River Rhine.
Artist Lin Boyan’s work uses Amazon’s MTurk platform to show viewers new labor in today’s digital age by handing out online tasks.
“Today, we are less able to look into the future via our own experiences, but fortunately we have unprecedented access to information. We can find parallel frames of reference in the present to understand ourselves more deeply,” said Yang Di, curator of the exhibition.
Exhibition info
Date: Through July 16 (closed on Mondays), 10am-6pm
Address: 27 Duolun Rd 多伦路27号
Admission: Free
