We visited Hangzhou last weekend in a perfect time. 18 hours train ride from Guangzhou on Friday afternoon, we arrived in Hangzhou on a Saturday morning. It was rainy the first day but for me that’s the Hangzhou weather you got to have. The next day was bright and sunny and all the flower paddles, seeds, leaves that got loose from the rain were flying in the wind. It’s quite impressive that the city planning of Hangzhou is formed as an infinite park around the west lake. There are amazing amount of public space for people to spend time out door.
The reason of this Hangzhou trip is the art show in Hangzhou Art Academy (aka China Art Academy). My friend Huang Xiaopeng is in the show and also with works from his students in the lab in Guangzhou Art Academy. There are two parts of the exhibitions: Unpack and 18 Cases studies of experimental art. The goal was to present and include Chinese contemporary art in Chinese art colleges. From the opening speech, it’s also an attempt to raise the status of Chinese contemporary art from “amateurism” to “academic”.
Hangzhou has the best spring I have ever seen.
One of the most interesting piece in the show, Huang Xiaopeng’s installation: “CCTV is in operation. Please keep your smile”. (more…)
前天下午终于从台北回到广州。这是我第一次去台湾，尽管办入境许可证时波折重重，但总算在出发前一周收到了台北寄来的许可。
台北总的感觉人文和教育素质比较高，城市发展比中国内地要平缓，没有那种明天就要翻天覆地的恐慌。台北文化深受日本和韩国文化影响。
台北的的士司机很友好也有一定的知识面。在台北的最后一天晚上，我们遇上了一位女的士司机，第二天她还把我们送去了机场。机场的一路上我和她聊开，了解到一些独特的台湾现象。
那天上了车后，出租车女士热情地要载我们去买葱油饼早餐，我们自然也赞同。我下车买了葱油饼后，出租车女士告诉我卖饼的男人是从大陆来得。他很年轻来台湾做工，虽然他在大陆有一个妻子，但以当时政策他以为他再也不能回大陆，所以他就在台湾又娶了一个妻子。后来回国政策宽松后，他回去大陆探望他在那儿的妻子，而其实在他离开她不久，她才发现她有了他的孩子。二三十年后，孩子都已经长大了，而他才第一次见到他。后来，大陆的妻子决定跟他一起去台湾。所以现在他有两个妻子，一个大陆的妻子和他一起做葱油饼赚钱，另外一个台湾妻子则和他感情上比较亲近。出租车女士告诉我这样的情况在台湾很常见。
这次在台湾除了参加亚洲与公众创用国际研讨会，我们还在非常廊(VT Art Salon)举办了第二次媒体互换活动（Media Exchange 2)。除了预定的几位展示者：Christopher Adams， 王春燕，朱捍东，Jon Phillips方力中和我展示之后，林其蔚等几位台湾艺术家也播放和介绍了他们的录像行为作品。我很庆幸尽管时间仓促我们还是最后做了这次活动，特别是回想起媒体互换在广州的第一次活动，我想这样定期的交流活动对个体艺术家来说很重要。所以我们的原则是不排除任何流派或艺术形式。谢谢Christopher Adams ，蔣慧仙和非常廊的支持和场地提供。
我没有拍太多的照片，我把其中一些放到了我的flickr上。另外还有一些来自Rebecca MacKinnon的照片。她拍得比我的好多了。
非常廊的媒体互换2活动。这些是Rebecca MacKinnon拍的照片。
方力中和林其蔚（Lin Chi-Wei)
猪头皮和他的乐队搖滾主耶穌。我很欣赏猪头皮的表演，因为你无法辨认他的慷慨陈词和夸张的表演是讽刺还是真实的。不过无论怎样，他都有办法把自己和其他人表演弄得有意思。
By Rebecca MacKinnon
台湾新闻很有娱乐性。
台北故宫博物院
Our last minute trip to Mexico City went well. Hurricane Dean wasn’t an issue anymore by the time we arrived inland Mexico. There were only some rain at night and actually it helped cleaned out the pollution quite a bit. This was my first time visiting a Spanish speaking country. Jon was learning it on the fly. Communication was not that much of a problem because people would tried their best to understand when I spoke in English with some gestures. In many ways Mexican people are humble and helpful.
Thank you for Leon and Jorge! You are great hosts and look forward to seeing you in SF.
Remembered the first time I went back to China after four years living in US, the first a few hours I felt I was in a foreign land. And being in Mexico City, all the suddent I had the feeling that I was in China. Very strange. It might because of seeing those incomplete and disfunctional buildings in Zona Rosa made me nostalgically thinking about China. I often see them as urban monuments. Later we found out that a lot of them were actually ruined during the earthquake. That is very different from China’s broken-tail projects. Yes, Mexico is very different.
Metro
Subway system in Mexico City is serving a great population. And it’s often packed like this. There were mobil pirate DVD sellers roaming between train carts. They had backpack-speakers and played videos with one of those portable LCD DVD players.
Subway stop sinages were made up with icons that represent the areas, so that illiterate people can also understand.
This is a sinage in Anthropology Museum.
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