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New-media creator goes low-tech
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WANG Zi and his collaborator took the stage with an assemblage of various music instruments, including the Australian didgeridoo, the stringed rawap from southern China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, monk’s alms bowl and a tribal nose flute.
The performers, wearing masks and robes, moved and sang along with the music, accompanied by flashes from cameras and smartphones. This strange spectacle on the opening day of the show was titled “Anatomy Sacrifice Ceremony.”
This is also the title of Wang’s installation work, consisting of an old television set, a record player, and a world map with sarcastic new signs and interpretations.
Wang, born in 1995, is the youngest “Qidian” participant and a new media student at Shanghai Institute of Visual Arts.
Q: What does the title of your piece mean?
A: It’s about rituals. I’ve grown very intrigued by the “primitive” ritual ceremonies devoted to nature. You can see a lot of tribal musical instruments used in the performance, instruments from both Oriental and Western cultures.
Rituals are no longer something we see or experience in everyday life. They seem so far away and so mysterious. And they are very distinct from the local cultures using unique sounds and instruments.
Q: Are the Oriental and Western rituals, and their associated music instruments, very different?
A: Yes, very different. For example, the Western instruments tend to be grander and more magnificent, while the Oriental sounds are more nature-relevant, more primitive.
I have always been interested in sound, and I was primarily attracted by rituals because of their distinct music.
For example, the didgeridoo is the musical instrument played by Australian natives, and its vibrations are supposed to resonate with those of the ground, like many tribal instruments do. I am quite fascinated by such sounds.
Q: Did you compose the music for all the instruments that you and your collaborator played?
A: No. It was all spontaneous. It was different every time we rehearsed, and it was different when you saw it at the opening. I enjoy such spontaneity in music.
Q: The ideas of sacrifice, ritual and your installation made with old TVs and recording machines don’t seem very “new media,” especially as you are a new media major. Was that the intended goal?
A: I reduced the technology to lower levels, to low-fi technologies like CRT TVs, which are rarely used today, to go back in time in terms of the technology.
My studies in new media might have inspired and prompted me into this idea of anti-new media. It is very trendy to create interactive, entertaining installations using new media technologies, and I have made works like that before. But it gets boring after a while. It stopped satisfying me in terms of its readability and sustainability.
New technologies are constantly evolving, hence continuously getting outdated. You can make a million different installations with new media, but the core idea is quite similar. I am no longer interested in hot new technologies. Instead I’m fascinated with the idea of exploring Oriental roots, to explore the relationship between man and nature through rituals or outdated technologies from the past.
Q: You are a junior now. What is your plan after graduation?
A: It is difficult to predict the future, but currently it seems ... that many people are only concerned about making some quick money. I hope that is not my future.
I hope that in 20 years I can get to my ideal state, and reach a balance between finance and art; both in the personal sense in that I can support myself financially while also creating my works, and in the general sense that art can become more accessible while not becoming a mass commercial product.
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