Tag: Where Where Art Space

ArtSlant: Things Lost and Found

Unclaimed Objects: Yang Jian solo show

Where Where Art Space, No. 319-1, East End Art Zone A, Caochangdi Village, Chaoyang District, Beijing

16 June – 15 July, 2012

In the exhibition text for Unclaimed Objects, artist Yang Jian recounts the story of a parasitic fungus which lives in the stomach of a cow, and spreads by passing out of the cow via it’s dung which in turn infects ants in the vicinity. The fungus then implants an urge in the ants to present themselves to be eaten by the next cow, thus passing into the new cow’s system. This life-cycle is presented very specifically as a “story” by the artist and—while there are reports of such occurrences—this aspect of fiction versus truth forms a background to his collected objects and narratives in currently on display at Where Where Art Space.

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ArtSlant: Virtue in De-Virtualizing

Joseph DeLappe: Screen Shot (curated by Gordon Laurin)

Where Where Art Space, No. 319-1, East End Art Zone A, Caochangdi Village, Chaoyang District, Beijing

9 – 31 July, 2011

Combat is a staple for ingredient for all types of gaming and the urge to realism in virtual recreations of real-life battlefields has become an extensive sub-genre of the online gaming experience. These virtual fields of glory play on exercises of strategy and coordination to the extent that they are equally useful as training and recruitment tools for the military, teaching skills and attitudes that have real-world implications and applications.

Over the last month American artist Joseph DeLappe has been resident at Beijing’s Where Where Space, and the show Screen Shot presented the results of his time here. DeLappe has a long history of working in the digital realm and this show presents a series of new drawings, photographs and a video in part based on his ongoing performance Dead-in-Iraq. Dead-in-Iraq is the artist’s intervention in the freely downloadable US Army recruiting game America’s Army. DeLappe enters the game in the character of an American soldier, but refusing to take part in the battles. When he witnesses another player killed by enemy- (and one assumes, given the claims to realism, also friendly-) fire, the artist uses the in-game chat system to post the name of a real-life soldier killed in Iraq as part of the American presence there.

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