G E N E R A L A R T I C L E

Electronic Media Art from China

New Visions Bring Messages from the Distant Past
JEAN M. IPPOLITO

This article introduces a number of contemporary artists in China In Microcosm, Miao Xiaochun recreates the famous Garden
A BST R A C T

who use digital technologies for art production. The author explores
how these artists embed ancient philosophical values into an
international mix of content in these new technological forms.
As the phenomenon of the escalating value of recent Chinese
art continues to impress the international art market, some
artists of China choose technological media as the vehicle for
their creative endeavors. In examining these newest visions
of the 21st century from China, I see a refreshing new kind
of art bearing deep-rooted cultural messages that draw upon
ancient Chinese philosophies and cultural traditions and are
swathed in contemporary electronic media. The artists dis-
cussed here were chosen because they appropriate images
from both European masterpieces and Chinese imagery in
their art, intertwining these images with electronic media in
a way that grabs the attention of an international academic
audience and subtly conveys messages that have been around
for a very long time. The digital designs are not superfluous in
these works. The artists use practical applications to facilitate
their ideas rather than using complicated technology for van-
ity’s sake. The complexity is in the content of the
works, and although the nature of the message
may be ancient, the artists’ motivation is future-
oriented.
of Earthly Delights, a 15th-century altarpiece by Hieronymus
Bosch (Article Frontispiece, Fig. 1). He updates the scenery in
the painting by adding modern buildings, mechanical items
and debris. In the animated version of Microcosm (Fig. 2),
the artist uses references to the 15th-century painting, but the
work contains a pointed message about technology’s impact
on humanity. Miao Xiaochun uses the apple as a symbol for
technology, suggesting that the lure of technology is similar
to that of the forbidden fruit in Bosch’s original. The message
concerns choice: How humanity chooses to use technology
will determine its impact. Will we continue to use technol-
ogy to develop instruments of war or will we choose to work
with technology in harmony with the environment? Even
using technology to make our lives easier and more bountiful
has its consequences. Will we lose our physical selves from
lack of activity? Will we lose our brainpower as the computer
does our calculations for us? Miao Xiaochun’s work raises
questions about and presents possible consequences for the
various choices that we make. Although his work appears to
be based solely on appropriations of Western European art,

ART ABOUT BALANCE

Miao Xiaochun, an artist who lives in Beijing and
teaches at the Central Academy of Fine Arts, re-
creates universally known masterpieces of West-
ern European art using 3D modeling technology.

Jean M. Ippolito (art historian), University of Hawaii at Hilo,

200 W. Kawili Street, Hilo, HI, U.S.A. Email: <jippolit@hawaii.edu>.

See <www.mitpressjournals.org/toc/leon/50/2> for supplemental

files associated with this issue.

Article Frontispiece. Miao Xiaochun, Microcosm,

digital image still, 2008. (© Miao Xiaochun) Fig. 1. Miao Xiaochun, Microcosm, installation, 2008. (© Miao Xiaochun)

©2017 ISAST doi:10.1162/LEON_a_00922 LEONARDO, Vol. 50, No. 2, pp. 160–169, 2017 161
 Fig. 2. Miao Xiaochun,
Microcosm, digital image stills, 2008.
(© Miao Xiaochun)

Fig. 3. Miao Xiaochun, RESTART, 3D computer animation, 2010, image still. (© Miao Xiaochun)

162 Ippolito, Electronic Media Art from China

there are some fundamental Chinese ideas hidden within the
imagery. In an interview in his studio in Beijing, Miao Xiao-
chun explained to me that the scene in Microcosm depicting
long- and short-necked giraffes represents nature’s way of
providing balance. The long-necked giraffes eat the leaves
higher up on the trees and the short-necked giraffes eat the
lower leaves. Thus there is plenty for all [1].
In RESTART, another animated piece by Miao Xiaochun,
the artist continues to appropriate from famous Western Eu-
ropean masterpieces but also adds obvious hints of ancient
Chinese values. A scene in which two toddlers are climbing
ladders—that lean together at the top—takes place inside a
French Gothic cathedral. The cathedral stone is surfaced with
tiles imitating blue and white Ming dynasty ceramic ware
(Fig. 3). The toddlers climbing the ladders connotes balance.
The weight of each toddler balances the other as they strive
to reach the top. Without this balancing, the ladders would
topple. Miao Xiaochun explained that because individualism
is so highly valued in Western culture, each person focuses
on individual achievement and, as a consequence, most fail
in the attempt. If we work with one another, rather than com-
peting, we can all succeed [2]. The concept of the interde-
pendence of balancing forces, yin and yang, is emphasized
in early Chinese philosophies, as in the following excerpt
from the Daodejing:
. . . being and non-being give birth to one another;
Difficult and easy give completion to one another;
Long and short form one another;
High and low fill one another;
Sound and voice harmonize with one another;
Ahead and behind follow after one another [3].
This is the ancient Chinese philosophy of balance and
harmony within collaborative effort. In Miao Xiaochun’s
work, this philosophy is implied in subtle mixed messages
that entwine digital imagery with well-known masterpieces
and moral overtones. The artist uses standard 3D modeling
and animation, but he looks beyond the finesse of the soft-
ware to convey his multilayered messages to an international
audience.
CREATING A UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE
Collaboration among people and balance with nature re-
quires the ability to communicate between people and cul-
tures. Mandarin Chinese is a difficult language for any native
speaker of English to master, in particular because its pho-
netic system has complicated distinctions between sounds
and tones. Written English, with its numerous irregularities
in spelling, pronunciation and grammar, is also complex
and difficult for non-native English speakers to master. With
English and Spanish serving as international languages in
Europe and the Americas and Mandarin gaining prominence
in Asia, how will these regions communicate their ideas to
one another in the future?
Art uses images and concepts to convey ideas across lan-
guage barriers and diverse cultures. In China, writing is made
up of hanzi, Chinese characters that evolved from picto-
graphs. These have a legendary origin and predate the Shang
dynasty, or the early 2nd millennium BCE. “Indeed, writing
as such was deemed to be the creation of ancient sages, the
privileged cosmographic matrix through which later rulers
were to know the world and enact its implicit order” [4].
Xu Bing, a well-established international artist who began as
a printmaker, has been creating artworks about the ironies
of communication for many years, beginning with his 1988
work Book from the Sky. An installation work, Book from the
Sky is made up of what look like Chinese characters, hand
carved and printed from woodblocks onto paper. The char-
acters are contrived, however, and cannot be read, even by
someone who is literate in Chinese. Several other works grew
out of this concept, including Xu Bing’s very popular Square
Word Calligraphy. In this work, each word of calligraphy
looks like a Chinese character but is illegible in Chinese and
is actually composed of an English word [5]. Eventually, Xu
Bing had this work converted into a computer algorithm that
automatically translates English romanized texts into square
word calligraphy. The user types in a word and receives the
square word calligraphy version of the word in return [6].
Xu Bing’s play with the written word has parallels with
the caustic humor and irony in the writings of Zhuangzi, a
Chinese philosopher who lived in the 4th century BCE. In
the following excerpt Zhuangzi questions the legitimacy of
words and seeks the true meaning underlying the mask on
the surface:
Words are not just wind. Words have something to say. But
if what they have to say is not fixed, then do they really say
something? Or do they say nothing? People suppose that
words are different from the peeps of baby birds, but is
there any difference, or isn’t there? . . . What do words rely
upon that we have right and wrong? [7]
The final evolution of Xu Bing’s creative endeavors with
language and cultural transference led him to explore the
invention of a kind of universal language. Book from the
Ground (2003) is the result. In the process of traveling
through international airports, Xu Bing became enamored
with the simple communication icons often posted on signs
and warning cards. The artist collected and assembled these
icons into a usable script and input them into a computer
database. These were used in his participatory installations
where gallery visitors could sit down at the computer and
input their own narratives for conversion to the visual icon
writing system [8]. After several years of adding icons to his
database, Xu Bing began to write a novel. When I visited Xu
Bing at CAFA in Beijing in March 2012, he gave me a copy
of his freshly published icon novel (Figs 4,5)—a story writ-
ten without a single word. The pictorial language used in his
book allows individuals across various cultures and strata of
society to read, write and communicate without a translator.
As I shared the novel with a non-English-speaking friend,
we both burst out laughing as we “read” the icons together
in silence. We could both relate to the silly and tense situa-
tions “described” in the narrative through universal pictures.
In the article “Towards a Universal Language: Andrew
Ippolito, Electronic Media Art from China 163

Fig. 4. Page from Xu Bing’s Point to Point (picture novel),
ISBN 978-986-87860-1-1, 3,000 copies printed, January 2012.
(© Xu Bing. Photo: Jean Ippolito.)
Fig. 5. Pages from Xu Bing’s Point to Point (picture novel).
(© Xu Bing. Photo: Jean Ippolito.)
Solomon interviews Xu Bing,” the interviewer and artist
focus primarily on languages and their value. They lament
dying languages and the cultures that will die with those lan-
guages, and they analyze the fundamental premise behind
a universal language [9]. Several times in the interview, Xu
Bing humbly sidesteps talking about the art-making process
and instead focuses on universal concerns about language
and cultural traditions [10]. It is as though art-making is a
164 Ippolito, Electronic Media Art from China
by-product of his analysis of these concerns, expressed sim-
ply but with diligence.
The Forest Project (2005) (Fig. 6) is an Internet-based
work that displays drawings by Kenyan children and allows
people to purchase the drawings. Proceeds from sales go to
the preservation of threatened forests in Kenya. To develop
this project, Xu Bing visited a village in Kenya and taught
the children how to make their own codified drawings using
Chinese characters as the building blocks of landscape ele-
ments. These drawings are auctioned on the website. It was
after Xu Bing’s experience living in New York for 15 years
that he realized he was seeing a developing country from
an “American” philanthropic perspective. He recognized his
new perspective as one he had witnessed from the other side
as a peasant worker in his youth in rural China. Xu Bing’s ex-
perience viewing the world from two very different vantage
points has influenced his attitude toward 21st-century art:
I am interested in works without boundaries. If you want
to make a contribution within the field of art, you’re not
going to get very far, as there’s really nothing new that you
can offer. You need to create something that does some
good for society, for humanity. If you can accomplish that,
you will take pleasure in it, and the art will gain force from
the process [11].
In Square Word Calligraphy, Book from the Ground and
The Forest Project, computer technology takes a prominent
role in Xu Bing’s work. Without computer technology and
the Internet, Xu Bing would certainly continue to make sig-
nificant works of art, but the first two works named above
use computer algorithms for transference, allowing user in-
put and participation and transferring from one language
or system of communication to a new one invented by the
artist. The third work mentioned, The Forest Project, utilizes
the universal access of the Internet to promote Xu Bing’s phil-
anthropic project.
REPRESENTING THE RELATIVITY OF TIME
Transference between language and culture is one of the
main themes of Xu Bing’s work. The Shanghai-based artist
Hu Jieming, however, focuses on transference of images over
various lengths of time. He compares months to minutes, and
years to days: a moment of time in a continuum. In One Hun-
dred Years in One Minute (Fig. 7), from his solo exhibition at
the ShanghArt Gallery in 2010 [12], Hu Jieming utilizes well-
known imagery from art history—not ancient art history, but
that of the last century—the “one hundred years” referred
to in the work’s title. After brainstorming with his “team” of
animators, Hu Jieming instructed them to make sequential
variations on works by Andy Warhol, Francis Bacon, Joseph
Beuys, Yves Klein and many others. So Andy Warhol’s Coca-
Cola bottles are bowled over by a bowling ball, Yves Klein’s
Anthropometries dance across the painted canvas, Duane
Hanson’s innocent shopper urinates on the floor and Marcel
Duchamp’s chocolate grinder rotates visibly. Each of these
variations is quite short—perhaps a minute in length—hence
the artistic license of the title reference to “one minute.” The
Fig. 6. Xu Bing, The Forest Project, 2009, drawing (116.5 × 344 cm). (© Xu Bing. Photo: Jean Ippolito.)
Fig. 7. Hu Jieming, concept image for One Hundred Years in One Minute, 2010. (© Hu Jieming)
paintings and sculptures are shown as time-based pieces; the
original works are still objects. The technological media that
Hu Jieming utilizes for his work is contemporary, but his
concern with the relativity of time mirrors the writings of
Zhuangzi:
The morning mushroom knows nothing of twilight and
dawn; the summer cicada knows nothing of spring and
autumn. They are the short-lived. South of Chu there is a
caterpillar that counts five hundred years as one spring and
five hundred years as one autumn. Long, long ago there was
a great rose of Sharon that counted eight thousand years as
one spring and eight thousand years as one autumn. They
are the long-lived [13].
How can we truly understand time from any other per-
spective than our own? Hu Jieming contrasts different per-
spectives in his work. The Fiction between 1999 and 2000 was
a 2001 installation piece for the San Francisco Museum of
Modern Art. The artist collected the images transmitted over
television stations during the one-day time span before the
clock changed from 31 December 1999 to 1 January 2000.
The idea behind this piece was to capture the day concluding
the 20th century in an onslaught of images. Each image is
printed on transparencies and hung on a wire mesh wall in
a maze-like structure for the installation (Fig. 8). In this way
the artist encourages the viewer to physically enter the video
by walking through the sequences of still images. It illustrates
our daily inundation with images. Rather than “watching”
the images from one vantage point as in standard video art,
the audience moves through the visuals.
Hu Jieming began to work with interactivity in 2003. He
feels that interactivity encourages an audience to spend more
time with a work of art. Visitors to art museums often wander
away from video art, he says [14].
Few people would watch a video from beginning to end in
the exhibition hall. Hence, the idea of the work is hardly
ever fully conveyed to the audience. As interactive ap-
proaches are adopted, the time length of a work seems to
disappear. There is no definite beginning or ending points.
The entrance of the audience marks the beginning point
and when they leave, the show is over [15].
Altitude Zero is a large work of art that Hu Jieming cre-
ated from pieces of an abandoned ship (Figs 9,10). He placed
video images in the ship’s portholes and set up motion sen-
sors to trigger changes to the images as viewers approach
or retreat from the portholes, thus creating an interactive
piece that responds to a viewer’s behavior. Initially, the viewer
Ippolito, Electronic Media Art from China 165

Fig. 8. Hu Jieming, The Fiction between 1999 and 2000, 2000–2001,
photo and sound installation, each photo (20 × 30 cm) on transparent film
(90 × 500 cm), used to construct an information maze 7 m wide, 8 m long
and 5 m high. (© Hu Jieming)
Fig. 9. Hu Jieming, Altitude Zero, interactive video installation, computers, computer
screens, infrared sensors, small speakers, cabin doors, 2007. Currently on display at
the ShangArt Gallery in Taopu Art District, Shanghai. (© Hu Jieming)
Fig. 10. Close-up view of floating garbage in Hu Jieming’s Altitude Zero.
(© Hu Jieming)
166 Ippolito, Electronic Media Art from China
sees an image of the ocean horizon, but as he or she
approaches, the waves push floating garbage up to the
porthole window. The effect is one of repulsion, as the
participant’s view is disrupted by the unsightly garbage,
which remains only until the viewer has removed him-
or herself from the immediate vicinity of the work.
ART AS COLLECTIVE EFFORT
This interactive element can also be found in much of
the work produced by the art collective Liu Dao (also
known as Island6). This work utilizes motion detectors,
LEDs and digital technology to engage the viewer. Most
of the work hangs on the wall in a 2D format. Some
pieces are objects, such as furniture bearing LED mes-
sages and ghostly images projected from within. A few
works have interactive components that are triggered
by the viewer’s approach. Some pieces encourage the
viewer to call a telephone number written within the
image. The phone call triggers new changes in the ani-
mated cycles of the imagery. Edison’s Canary (2012) is
an example of a Liu Dao work that uses Global System
for Mobile (GSM) module technology [16]. A photo-
graphic image of an attractive woman in a cage has a
telephone number with “Call Me” written just above
her head. When the viewer uses a cell phone to call the
number, the woman appears to receive an electric jolt.
The viewer decides when to end the call and thus the
woman’s discomfort.
None of the artworks produced by the Liu Dao collec-
tive are attributed to a single artist. Each member is en-
couraged to share ideas through brainstorming sessions
and to draw on the technical skills of the other members
of the group to carry out the ideas. The works of art
are exhibited in a number of supporting galleries, but
there is also a dedicated Liu Dao gallery in the Mogan-
shan avant-garde art district of Shanghai (Fig. 11). The
concept of collective effort is one of the main motiva-
tions of Liu Dao. Artists’ collectives were an important
feature of communist China, where individualism and
self-promotion were discouraged in favor of collective
efforts for the benefit of the whole. Liu Dao expands the
concept of the collective by promoting itself as an inter-
national collective with participants from various parts
of China, France, the United States, Taiwan, Hong Kong,
Singapore, Canada, Denmark, Guatemala and Belgium.
An introductory paragraph from the 2011 catalog pub-
lished in the United Kingdom reads:
Liu Dao was formed as a response to the rapidly
booming Chinese art market that was creating mis-
placed priorities and selfish ambitions in many young
and susceptible artists. It stood as the counteraction
to growing egocentrism and commercialization in
China. Between them, the members of Liu Dao have
degrees in fields as varied as photography, sculpture,
digital arts, film, intellectual property law, finance, his-
tory, and theater from universities around the world.
 Such diversity invites conversational intellectualism and
complements the ideals of co-operative effort that form
the guiding vision of the arts center and the collective [17].
For Liu Dao, the message is found not in each individual’s
work, but rather in the collective effort of the group, who do
not take individual credit for their work. It is my opinion
that their ideals circle back to ancient Chinese concepts of
shared effort for bettering the whole or maintaining balance
in nature. Finally, the virtue of collaboration and cooperative
support within the art community, rather than the cutthroat
competitiveness and self-promotion of the latter decades of
the second millennium, is expressed in the philosophy of
Zhuangzi:
Go side by side with the sun and moon,
Do the rounds of Space and Time.
Act out their neat conjunctions,
Stay aloof from their convulsions.
Dependents each on each, let us honor one another.
Common people fuss and fret.
The sage is a dullard and a sluggard.
Be aligned along a myriad years, in oneness,
wholeness, simplicity.
All the myriad things are as they are,
And as what they are make up totality [18].
Both the Daodejing and the writings of Zhuangzi em-
phasize the interconnectedness and interdependence of all
things. When all things submit to the interdependence of
the whole, there is a balance and harmony that benefits the
totality. Mozi, a Chinese philosopher of the 5th century BCE,
reveals what happens when the individual works against the
balance and unity of nature:
It is the business of the humane person to try to promote
what is beneficial to the world and to eliminate what is
harmful. Now at the present time, what brings the greatest
harm to the world? Great states attacking small ones, great
Fig. 11. Liu Dao, gallery views in Shanghai, Moganshan Art District, 2010. (© Liu Dao. Photo: Jean Ippolito.)
families overthrowing small ones, the strong oppressing the
weak, the many harrying the few, the cunning deceiving the
stupid, the eminent lording it over the humble—these are
harmful to the world [19].
In addition, Mozi describes his solution to this disruption:
When we inquire into the cause of these various harms,
what do we find has produced them? Do they come about
from loving others and trying to benefit them? Surely not?
They come rather from hating others and trying to injure
them. And when we set out to classify and describe those
who hate and injure others, shall we say that their actions
are motivated by universality or partiality? Surely we must
answer, by partiality and it is this partiality in their dealings
with one another that gives rise to all the great harms in
the world. . . . Partiality should be replaced by universality.
. . . If men were to regard the states of others as they regard
their own, then who would raise up his state to attack the
state of another? It would be like attacking his own [20].
ART ABOUT DAO
Hung Keung is one artist who incorporates actual words
from the Daodejing to articulate the connection between his
art and ancient Chinese philosophy. The excerpt below is
from chapter 42 of Laozi’s 6th-century BCE text:
The Dao 道 (the “way”) gives birth to one.
One gives birth to Two, Two gives birth to Three.
Three gives birth to thousands of things or all things
in the universe.
All things carry yin and embrace yang.
When yang and yin combine, all things achieve
harmony [21].
Hung Keung—who was born in Kunming, China, but grew
up in Hong Kong—began his project entitled Dao Gives Birth
to One in 2009 and has continued to create more complex
Ippolito, Electronic Media Art from China 167
 versions of the project since then. Version IV was exhibited
at the Center for Chinese Contemporary Art in Manchester,
United Kingdom, in 2012, with video capture and audience
participation. Dao Gives Birth to One evolved from Hung
Keung’s research with imhk lab on his early insect project
series, in which insects swarm toward human flesh tones
[22]. In Dao Gives Birth to One, Hung Keung replaces the
insects with Chinese characters. The hanzi are dissected,
deconstructed and then animated like the insects to swarm
toward movement and human flesh. The hanzi continuously
multiply from the initial appearance of the character yi (一)
for “one” to a “thousand” or myriad (in this usage, all things
in the universe). Hung Keung explains that the character yi
(一) represents the beginning of the cyclical universe and
the separation of the sky from the earth (from Laozi: “One
gives birth to two”) [23]. Since Chinese characters are formed
from pictures drawn by the human hand, but the legendary
origin of Chinese characters is considered divine [24], it is
this interaction between the human element and the divine
that begets writing. It is this connection between the creation
of writing and the human element that is the artist’s personal
mark in this piece. Still, it is the message of interconnected-
ness, multiplicity and merging opposites that leads to the
harmony found in Hung Keung’s dialogue about his work.
As humanity becomes progressively interwoven with elec-
tronic media, we cycle back to the original philosophy of the
Dao and see ourselves as one interconnected whole. Further-
more, when viewed from the traditional Chinese perspective
of a cyclical history, time—as we profess to understand it in
today’s socioeconomic climate—is inconsequential to knowl-
edge, relatively speaking.
CYBERSPACE AS ILLUSION
Among other artists from China using digital technology in
their work are Zhang Peili, considered the pioneer of video
art in China, and Feng Mengbo, who creates tongue-in-cheek
appropriations of video game spaces. Their work, however,
differs from that of the other artists discussed in this article
because they draw on China’s more immediate past. Feng
Mengbo uses his own image as an avatar in video game en-
References and Notes
1 Miao Xiaochun, personal interview with the author in the artist’s
studio, Beijing, 25 February 2012.
2 Xiaochun [1].
3 Sources of Chinese Tradition, Second Edition, Wm. Theodore de Bary
and Irene Bloom, eds. (New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1999) p. 80.
(The earliest found text of the Daodejing dates from before 300 BCE,
but speculation is that the writings originated as early as the 6th or
5th century BCE.)
4 Hajime Nakatani, “Xu Bing and the Graphic Regime,” Art Journal
68, No. 3, p. 8 (Fall 2009).
5 Xu Bing, personal interview with the author at the Central Acad-
emy of Fine Arts (CAFA), Beijing, where he currently serves as Vice
President, 23 March 2012.
168 Ippolito, Electronic Media Art from China
vironments that he appropriates in order to make himself
the hero of his own digital revolution. Today’s players of-
ten get lost in the fictitious gaming world, leading them to
question what is their true reality. As with Zhuangzi who
awakened from a dream of being a butterfly only to question
his true existence [25], the gamer, emerging from digital il-
lusions, wonders if he or she is a person dreaming of being
a butterfly or a butterfly dreaming of being a person. Feng
Mengbo, sometimes associated with the Chinese Political
Pop movement, states that he prefers to be called a game
artist because, although he is interested in history, he cannot
be held responsible for the past [26]. The artists showcased in
this article may not be as renowned for their use of cutting-
edge technology as Feng Mengbo is, but their use of digital
media has its own virtue in contributing, however subtly, to
bringing ancient philosophical ideals to the surface of our
current reality.
CONCLUSION
Many of the artists given as examples above weathered the
storm of the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) and overcame
great hardships to be creatively productive today. Some left
China to exercise creative freedom and then returned to
embrace the changing ideology of their birthplace. In inter-
preting these works of art, I find philosophical adages of the
ancient past wrapped in contemporary electronic media and
brought into our own time. This content contrasts with the
tendency toward individual self-expression found in 20th-
century European and American art: The artists discussed
in this article utilize their creativity to contribute to society
by educating the public or raising awareness of pertinent is-
sues. The underlying messages found in the works reach far
back in time, before the Cultural Revolution, to the moral
teachings of the ancient Chinese sages, and they educate a
21st-century audience with great subtlety. We can all learn
from the ancient Chinese texts and from these contemporary
electronic media artists of China. Technology can seem very
disconnected from the past, but some artists are using digital
imagery as a universal language to merge old and new ideas
across time.
6 Shinoda Takatoshi, ed., The Library of Babel: Characters/Books/Me-
dia, exhibition catalog (Tokyo: NTT Publishing, 1998).
7 Burton Watson, trans., The Complete Works of Chuang Tzu (New
York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1968) p. 39.
8 Xu Bing, Projects 2007, <www.xubing.com/index.php/site/projects
/year/2007/moma_book_from_the_ground>, accessed 9 June 2014.
9 Andrew Solomon, “Towards a Universal Language: Andrew Solo-
mon interviews Xu Bing,” in Tomii Reiko et al., Xu Bing (London:
Albion, 2011) pp. 45–52.
10 Solomon [9] p. 47.
11 Solomon [9] p. 52.
12 ShangArt Gallery, Hu Jieming: One Hundred Years in One Minute,
exh. cat. (Shanghai: ShanghArt Gallery, 2010).
13 Watson [7] p. 30.
14 Hu Jieming, personal interview with the author in the artist’s Mo-
ganshan Studio, Shanghai, 25 March 2012.
15 Hu Jieming in an interview with Zhang Qing in ShangArt Gallery
[12] p. 173.
16 Liu Dao (Island6) website, Edison’s Canary, 2012, <www.island6.org
/EdisonsCanary.html>.
17 Clare Jacobson et al., eds., Island6 Catalog 2011 (Cumbria, U.K.: Fold
Press) p. 4.
18 From Zhuangzi, original translation by Angus Graham, excerpted in
Sources of Chinese Tradition [3] p. 102.
19 Section 16 of Mozi, “Universal Love” (Part 3), excerpted in Sources of
Chinese Tradition [3] p. 69.
20 Section 16 of Mozi [19] p. 70.
21 Hung Keung, “Dao Gives Birth to One,” <www.hungkeung.word
press.com/exhibition/dao-gives-birth-to-one>.
22 See Hung Keung + imhk lab in “Insect Project II,” <www.youtube
.com/watch?v=CHoV7tr0ZVE&list=PLDE3F9545120860CD>.
23 Keung [21].
24 As explained by the Tang dynasty (618–907 CE) art historian Zhang
Yanyuan in the Li Dai Ming Hua Ji 历代名画记 (Record of Famous
Paintings through History), completed in 847 CE. See William Acker,
trans., Some T’ang and Pre-T’ang Texts on Chinese Painting (Leiden,
The Netherlands: E.J. Brill, 1954) p. 62.
25 Watson [7] p. 49.
26 Michel Nuridsany, China Art Now (Paris: Flammarion, 2004) p. 255.
Manuscript received 7 July 2014.
JEAN M. IPPOLITO, Associate Professor and Art Historian at
the University of Hawaii at Hilo, is a specialist in contemporary
art of China and Japan, particularly electronic media art.

ANNOUNCEMENT

MIT Press Journals Podcasts

The MIT Press Journals Podcast series allows Leonardo authors and contributors to
continue the conversation initiated in the pages of the journal in dialogue with each other.
Tune in to hear from authors, editors and artists working at the intersection of art, science
and technology. The MIT Press Journals Podcast webpage currently hosts a discussion
between Jean-Marc Chomaz, Mikael Fernström, Sean Taylor, Annick Bureaud and
Roger Malina on their work in the arts and sciences showcased in the article collection,
Water Is in the Air: Physics, Politics, and Poetics of Water in the Arts ; a conversation
inspired by Leonardo e-Book Series release Art and Atoms, featuring Tami Spector,
Philip Ball, Kathryn de Ridder-Vignone, Julian Voss-Andreae and Roger Malina
on the connections between science—especially chemistry—and art; and more
lively, engaging discussions of interest to the art/science community.
To learn more: <www.mitpressjournals.org/page/podcasts>.

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