Restart

Interview by Huang Du with Miao Xiaochun，Chanson Studio, Beijing, March 25, 2010

Translated by Hao Yanjing

Huang Du (hereafter Huang ): Why did you name your new work as Restart?

Miao Xiaochun (hereafter Miao ): After working for a whole day, we are exhausted; we don’t want to do anything but sleep; and we just want this day to pass soon. We are not afraid because tomorrow will come and we can finish what we started yesterday or improve what we did not like. There are many tomorrows; day after day and year after year. Everyday when we wake up, we can start over again and that makes me excited. It would be great if we can live once and again; it would be great if we can create art once and again. Thus I have this simple and naive yet strong aspiration: to forget everything and restart.

In the past few years, I can feel that time passes by rapidly. When a certain feeling becomes extremely strong, it will certainly become the theme of my work. I always feel that I want to re-do many things that I did not do well. Since I use different standards to evaluate myself, I can only improve and correct my mistakes by re-doing these things. If a computer runs too many programs and crashes, the simplest way is to restart it. However, there are things that we cannot re-do: science is close to us, it tells us that no one can prevent birth, death or sickness. Summer comes and winter goes, nobody can do anything about it. On the other hand, religion is far away from us, and incarnation that it represents is far away as well. Therefore, we have to be strong and face death and destruction on our own. There are many destructing images in Restart: destruction of civilization, such as the collapse of the School of Athens; there are also the destruction of human body, willpower and nature. At the end, we are surrounded by a pessimistic and struggling atmosphere. Maybe starting over again does not result in a better outcome; maybe we still need to face death and destruction. However, the idea of restarting makes me excited and exhilarated.

Huang: You have another large animation work made with 3D technology - Microcosm, are there any connections between these two works? What are some differences?

Miao: It is a continuation in style, and there are no big jumps. To improve a kind of expression method or style, we need to create works one after another. There is no way to achieve the peak after only one piece of work. Therefore, the two works are related and the new work is naturally a continuation of the previously work. The difference between these two works is the emotion. There are some optimistic and positive colors in Microcosm; and the new work Restart is very pessimistic and hopeless from the beginning to the end.

Huang: There is a core concept in your works: re-utilize legacies of the art history. For example, your first large animation work Microcosm explores the relationship between Hieronymus Bosch’s painting and the reality. This Restart leverages Pieter Brugel’s The Triumph of Death, Raphael’s The School of Athens and Parnassus，Gustave Courbet’s Burial at Ornans and Theodore Gericault’s The Raft of the Medusa. These paintings are independent stories; how do you connect and relate those different and individual narrations? What are some common characteristics among them?

Miao: One thing is very important: these paintings all represent independent stories. Theoretically speaking, they cannot be connected; but I eliminated their independent narrations and replaced them with the same model. I removed identities, ethnic groups, time and space concepts to form a new story. This new story is more poetic, more dreamy and different from the traditional original stories. This is how these paintings are combined.

Huang: From this point of view, these independent stories are transformed into a related story. When you tell this new story, 3D technology is very important because technology can change the nature of the story. Technology can also cause changes in stories. Is that so?

Miao: Yes. Those paintings represent certain events or certain circumstances in their historical times. By using 3D technology, these stories are extracted from their times and from the art history; they became something without characters, expressions or directions. By using 3D technology, I created a virtual world and a new context; I’m re-telling the stories in a new context. Images formed this way might have certain relationship with the original works; or maybe the composition is similar. However, the emotions and ideas that I want to represent are completely different; 3D technology is very effective in doing this.

Huang: That means 3D technology – or technological aesthetics – can transform, deconstruct, localize and internalize historical stories or cultural legacies to create a new language.

Miao: Yes, this is how new technology fascinates me. There are endless possibilities. During this transformation, there is a certain relationship between new works and old works. The new artwork seems to carry on the old artwork, yet the new one also seems to revolutionize the old. This kind of relationship fascinates me when I work on my works in the past few years.

Huang: Another question: if we compare Restart with Microcosm, do you feel that the new work is more micro and more from a micro point of view? This micro does not mean you don’t have a big picture, but it means you are considering something concrete in nature, naming the existence of life or the meaning of life. So what is the meaning of life? What is the value of being in existence? Is this a core issue that you have been considering?

Miao: I want to push this question to its next level continuously. This could be a very personal consideration or a very emotional consideration. At the end, it is an artistic question. The last part is very important.

Huang: The animation explores one theme – death. There are actual death, historical death and virtual death. How do you interpret the philosophical relationship between these three factors?

Miao: Deep down, of course I want death to be as far away from me as possible, and the best scenario is for death to never happen. However, for those historical deaths, curiosity shortens the distance between me and death. What I face everyday now is virtual death and I have been simulating a destruction process.

If there are no words, paintings, movies or televisions… would we think about these questions over and over again from different perspectives and in different ways? Stone Age people did not have these media, would they think about these questions over and over again? Maybe they have been thinking, but they don’t have media to express and record their considerations. We are surrounded by all kinds of media, and we face these media everyday; death and birth are thus amplified. Maybe, death was not as important to an individual before, but once we simulate it and re-consider historical legacies, death became larger and larger … I think this process is very interesting.

Huang: Death is obviously the opposite of birth; do you think that death implies the value of birth?

Miao: Maybe, I seriously do not have the ability to define the meanings of death and birth, but this is very important and inevitable. Death and birth, each one of us has to experience it once. Death seems to be very far away from me and I cannot experience death in advance. Even if I experience death, it will not be helpful to our discussion. Let’s assume that I suddenly realized the meaning of life in the several seconds before I die, I would have no time to describe it in words or in art. On the other hand, I am 46 years away from birth. At the beginning of my birth, obviously I was not educated and unable to write anything down. I probably just cried for a while. Therefore, for the most important issues in life, I don’t remember birth and I did not experience death yet; I can only observe, listen or think about these two important stages of life.

Huang: I noticed one part of your work: there is a church made of porcelain, and a child is climbing a ladder to get up. This kind of porcelain is a Chinese symbol, what kind of meaning does it have?

Miao: The child climbing up means he is pursuing something in a naive and fearless way. The porcelain symbolizes fragility. Hopes are fragile and will collapse easily: even he climbs up bravely, at then end; everything is destroyed. However, this kind of fearless pursue is something that human beings should have; otherwise, we are left with nothing.

There are two sets of ladders in the animation: one is longer and the other is shorter. These two ladders support each other. At the beginning, there are two children, each climbing up one ladder; if one child climbs pass the mid point, the longer ladder will lose its balance. To keep balance, one of the solution is for the second child to go on to the longer ladder and start climbing down instead of climbing up. This way, the other child can climb up continuously.

When everyone is pursuing the same goal, maybe this goal is very beautiful. However it is also scary and dangerous for everybody to pursue it. I haven’t figured this out completely yet. Here is a contradiction: we must have goals and aspirations in our lives; otherwise we are just walking corpses. If everybody is pursuing their dreams and these dreams contradict with each other, it is very difficult to image the consequences. If everyone is seeking the same goal, who can guarantee that this goal is correct? Who can guarantee that the methods you use to realize this goal is correct? Therefore, what I’m applauding is the pursue itself.

Huang: This piece of artwork is very impressive: it is poetic, dream-like, expressive and grand. I think the message that this artwork sends out is kind of belief and religion. What religious considerations did you have with this poetic and elegant expression?

Miao: Now I can explain why I used Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis as the background music for this animation. If I use very high-purity moral standards to evaluate me, I think I’m vulgar, trivial and humble. Thus I need something noble to lead me. Maybe some traditional artworks already got in touch with a little bit of this nobleness, such as Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis. I strongly felt its attraction.

Huang: Your works reminded me of one question: when contemporary art develops, what are the core issues that artists try to explore or what are all artists trying to explore with their ideas, languages and forms? Artists always try to discuss something with eternal value. In the art history, we can see those artistic breakthroughs in the historical timeline. Artists like Marcel Duchamp, Andy Warhol, Joseph Beuys, Arte Povera representatives Jannis Kounellis and Mario Merz are all using artistic concepts, languages and forms to explore some core issues. They are not emphasizing certain content because the content is not unique. My question is: I don't see any traces of Chinese symbols in your works, how do you handle the relationship between story, language, concept and form from a new media point of view?

Miao: This is very important. First, in our times, the development of new technology brought new ways of thinking which cancels out a lot of things: geographical difference and time difference. Some barriers that could not be surpassed before are being conquered by us. When we travel around the world, would you feel any difference being in Buenos Aires airport or London airport? There are the same signs, same security system, same queues, and same airplanes. Sometimes I have a weird feeling and I ask myself where am I? With internet, you can talk with someone in another country via Skype instantly. This kind of time difference and spatial difference are being squeezed; they brought huge changes and cultural integration. Second, such differences are being further eliminated in a 3D virtual world. Directions, stories and circumstances are offset by technology. So when we think about those core issues, we use a new way of thinking. This is very interesting and it is very different from my works 10 or 20 years ago. Before I was interested in “identity” and “western and oriental cultural conflicts”; looking back, is it important? In addition, my attitude towards other artists from different countries is different. Before, I felt it’s their culture, their history and what they inherited; now I can look at this in a more relaxed way. I can even look at their works as our common property. I often visit different museums in different countries to look at all kinds of artworks; and now I would not distinguish which one is ours and which one is theirs. It seems like this ownership distinction is also diminishing; I’m not sure if you have such feelings or not?

Then everyone will start to think about issues of common concern. Westerners are thinking about it; Orientals are thinking about it; and we have more common ground to communicate with each other.

Huang: Actual, I interviewed a very famous Italian artist Jannis Kounellis - a representative of Arte Povera on March 1^st in Beijing. I asked him a question “what is the core of Arte Povera”. His answer was inspiring. He said that the core of Arte Povera is about creating art everywhere. It is not about constraining Arte Povera concepts in Italy or Europe; it is not about internalizing every simple thing. Obviously, the core is also about esthetics: Arte Povera can construct concepts based on circumstances and physical space via the discovery of materials and the energy that materials can bring out. What’s interesting is that we are not only analyzing our own traditional culture, but we are also facing the analysis of a happening new culture. Just like when we look at today’s world, we cannot look at it from a single point of view; we need to look at internal and external relationships. Take an economic term globalocalism as an example: this word is the combination of global and local; it means we need to look at today’s world from a “global and local” perspective. We have another term single-universalism in the art circle. It is also a compound word and very important. We need to look at everything from a “single-universalism” point of view. For me, I can understand some issues that you are exploring and your ideas when I look at your works. For example, your works discuss an eternal question for human beings, naming “birth and death”; in addition, you use simulation technology to deconstruct history, reality and virtuality. I think this is a very interesting core concept. This is my understanding about your works, how do you feel about my interpretation?

Miao: Actually this is a question that we face everyday. These two terms are very interesting.

Huang: Do you think that artworks created with 3D technology have similar perspectives?

Miao: Very similar, I just use one 3D model (single) to express everything (universal)! I have been using all kinds of artworks from history! I use one model to explain it, convert it and make it into something universal. I think this word is very good. Of course, I have to look at this from a technological point of view first. In recent years, I have been doing one thing – that is single-universalism. Artworks of this era with this method definitely have this character…

Huang: I think these two words are very rich in meanings and they are inseparable. As an individual artist, one’s artworks must have some universal elements, meaning that you have to look at your creativity with universal perspective; you have to relate a personalized creation with universal values; you have to relate something regional to something global instead of emphasizing only a region or globalization. You must have your regional and individual values; at the same time, you need to create something with universality and common values.

Miao: I think this is a goal that I pursue. I don’t know if I achieved it or not, but it is a very interesting goal.

Huang: Another question: we have extremely advanced technology nowadays: we have all seen Avatar this year. What inspirations did Avatar bring to your personal creation?

Miao: To be honest, my technology cannot compare with Avatar’s technology at all. There are so many things that I can learn. Avatar is very advanced in terms of technology. 3D technology will for sure bring unimaginable things to televisions and movies in the future. I think that I’m just using this technology to create my artworks; I should stress my individual ideas instead of following the most advanced technology. This is more feasible.

I can explain this with one example from art history: perspective from the Renaissance period. Perspective was like 3D technology of that time; it can make paintings extremely vivid so that people feel that they are in the paintings themselves. It was very impressive.

Looking back, many artworks using perspective are not the greatest artworks in art history. By 20^th century, perspective was basically not being used at all because we had new technology: photography and movies. It was easy to achieve perfect perspective. Once you shoot something, you see absolutely accurate perspective. At that time, we went to the opposite of perspective which is eliminating the use of perspective completely.

Maybe some other new technology in the future will replace today’s 3D technology. Then we have a problem: what other things can touch people’s hearts other than technology.

Huang: This is very interesting. If we talk about technology alone, technology is something that will not stop advancing; when an artist races with technology, what can he/she leave behind? Just like you said, what did artists from the beginning of the 21^st century leave to us? What kind of things are left by previous artists? I think your artworks or similar works and this technology would be a piece of evidence and a trace of this period in the art history after 20 or 10 years. If we look at other Chinese artists and foreign artists from 2008-2010, their technology is about the same; their aesthetics is about the same. The most important thing is that technology is not the core, but art is. What responsibilities and characters do artists have? Artists are special for their imagery thinking. Imagery thinking means imaginations, ideas and creativity. These are the core of artworks. Artists are not competing with people who design software and technology is not the core. Artists can use technology as a tool to express his ideas. The most important thing is ideas, imaginations, language and form that are expressed via technology.

Miao: Reviewing the history, I still remember one of Nam June Paik’s works: using a video on top of a television to shoot a Buddha sitting in front of the TV which is then shown in the TV in real time. The Buddha faces an image played on the TV. This technology cannot be simpler; it is so much simpler than today’s video technology, interaction technology and virtual technology. However, I cannot push this piece of artwork out of my mind. I’m deeply touched by it. There is a sense of Zen in it; something wise, something about life, and something about everything. By then, you will forget about technology and this is something that can support my works: I think there is not much to say about my technology; after 10 or 20 years, people will see my technology as something very simple. However, if I can achieve some sort of balance between the technology and my artistic ideas, then my works have intrinsic value. It is not meaningful to pursue technology purely, but at the same time, technology support is also essential.

In Europe, almost 99% of artists used perspective and anatomical methods from Renaissance to Modernism. At that time, artists were trying to make paintings more real and more vivid. Very few artists did not try to paint vividly; like Greco, his paintings had irregular and extended shapes. By then, people probably said how can someone paint it this way? Perspective and anatomy were not used at all. However, by the 20^th century, you suddenly realize Greco’s works are excellent! Looking back, 99% of artists pursued perspective and anatomy in the past hundreds of years. They obviously had reasons to do that. Valazquez who pursued absolutely correct perspective and anatomy is as outstanding as Greco who did not pay too much attention to perspective and anatomy. At that time, perspective is a kind of technology advancement and everyone must pursue this.

Huang: And we are still pursuing.

Miao: Absolutely. Artists from different times have their technology aspirations. It is very difficult not to pursue new technologies and there is no particular way of pursuing it. Same for us, we are also seeking something glamorous and novel in technology. I’m sure one day all of these will be abolished and replaced by newer technology; at the same time, some things will not be forgotten. They are beyond times, and that’s something worth our considerations.