What are theories of the media, if not \u00adpropositions meant to explain the how and the means of the interconnection between \u00addifferent existences within a same ether?<\/pre>\n\u2013 Peter Sloterdijk <\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The Bubble as Evolutionary Medium?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Born in Xupu, in the province of Hunan, in 1974, Shu Yong has developed an intensely media-oriented (and mediatized) art practice founded on direct interaction with the public. Himself the owner of an advertising agency, he treats Chinese society as a laboratory, operating either through social events or directly through the mass-media in what he, following Beuys, calls \u201csocial sculpture.\u201d While the association with Beuys may verge on the presumptuous\u2014Yong is light years away from Beuys\u2019 \u201cbroader concept of art\u201d or his search for a third way between \u00adcommunism and \u00adcapitalism^{1<\/sup><\/a><\/span>} 1 <\/a> - On this topic, see Joseph Beuys and Volker Harlan, What is Art? Conversations with Joseph Beuys<\/em> (East Sussex: Clairview Books, 1992).<\/span>\u2014, one can nonetheless say in his defence that he does indeed seem to be particularly responsive to the social processes of \u201c\u00adevolutionary warmth\u201d so dear to the master from Krefeld. For several years now, Yong has been working with a powerful intuition of what Bachelard had called \u201cthe intimacy of roundness,\u201d evinced in his most recent work by a fondness for the figure of the bubble<\/em>. In the series of oil paintings titled China Mythology<\/em> (2007-08), for instance, Yong \u00adrevisits ancient Chinese mythology in colourful, fairy-tale-like \u00adsurroundings, where mythological characters appear within soap \u00adbubbles. Soap \u00adbubbles are also in evidence in his photo-performance project Bubbles in the Office<\/em> (2000-06), where Yong would show up and blow soap \u00adbubbles in the offices of rich businessmen in the Pearl River Delta region of Guangdong province, provoking surprised, sometimes even angry reactions. From the arcana of ancient Chinese mythology to the hyper-energetic entrepreneurial life of a region justly dubbed the \u201cworkshop of the world\u201d (economic production in 2009 may well surpass US$512.1 billion), Yong\u2019s bubbles seem to undo the world, to take it into an evanescent spaciotemporal continuum; they form a kind of ethereal superconductor for a world that is becoming \u00adunified as it \u00addematerializes. One might say that the bubble is to Young what fat is to Beuys, a \u00adsculptural \u00adexpression of uncondensed social \u00adexistence, a trans-individual \u00adquasi-body (a media?). Note that in Mandarin, the word \u201cmedia\u201d is translated as \uccb5\u7adf (meiti<\/em>)\u2014literally, \u201cmediator of bodies.\u201d In a way, Yong\u2019s work strives to interrogate the media phenomenon, at the confluence of the organic and the ethereal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In view of customary denunciations of media control in China, Yong\u2019s work provides an occasion to up-end familiar Western attitudes regarding the Chinese \u201cmediascape.\u201d I propose to investigate this body of work in light of Peter Sloterdijk\u2019s theory of the media. In his three-volume Spheres trilogy, subtitled respectively \u201cBubbles\u201d (Blasen<\/em>), \u201cGlobes\u201d (Globen<\/em>), and \u201cFoam\u201d (Sch\u00e4ume<\/em>), Sloterdijk broaches the human social fact from an immunological perspective, that is, from one in which a certain inner \u00adclosure is the precondition for the possibility of any opening.^{2<\/sup><\/a><\/span>} 2 <\/a> - \u201cThe concept of autopoietic closure must be understood as the recursively closed organization of an open system. . . the new vision postulates closure as a condition for opening.\u201d Niklas Luhmann, L\u2019autopo\u00ef\u00e8se des syst\u00e8mes sociaux<\/em>, cited in Roberto Esposito, Immunitas. Protezione e nagazione della vita<\/em> (Turin: Einaudi, 2002), 56. (Our translation, from the French.) <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n
Incidentally, China plays no small part in the development of Sloterdijk\u2019s thought. His theory of media, for instance, contributes to what he himself describes as an Asian Renaissance: \u201c…a Chinese ingredient comes through, in subtle pulsations; one can hear a barely perceptible foetal music of the spheres.\u201d^{3<\/sup><\/a><\/span>} 3 <\/a> - Peter Sloterdijk, La mobilisation infinie<\/em> (Paris: Seuil, 2000), 17. [All quotes from Peter Sloterdijk are necessarily our own, since much of this contemporary German philosopher\u2019s work\u2014especially his major \u0153uvre, the Spheres<\/em> trilogy, from which most of the quotations in this essay are taken\u2014has not been translated into English. Furthermore, as neither time nor personal ability permit translation from the original German, these translations are based on the French translations provided and cited by Erik Bordeleau, informed, where possible, by available discussion (articles, interviews) of his work. \u2013Trans<\/em>.]<\/span> And in his magnificent \u201cBubbles,\u201d Sloterdijk claims to be inspired by what he calls the \u201cChinese continuum\u201d\u2014\u201cHas China not been, right up to the threshold of our century, a monstrous artistic \u00adexercise on the theme \u2018to exist in a space without exterior by closing oneself off?\u2019\u201d^{4<\/sup><\/a><\/span>} 4 <\/a> - Sloterdijk, Sph\u00e8res, Tome I: Bulles<\/em> (Paris: Fayard, 2002), 68.<\/span> His is the \u00adperfect opportunity to ask ourselves how \u00adcontemporary China reconciles \u00adgovernment censorship and \u00adhypermodern media \u00adpractices, how it \u00adbecomes one with its body<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
$\"\"$ <\/figure>\n\n\n\n
$\"\"$
Shu Yong<\/strong>
Bubble Woman I<\/em> and detail, 2006.
Photos: courtesy Galerie Urs Meile, Beijing-Lucerne
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
Plastic Biopower and Mammary Advantages<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
For Sloterdijk, the social sphere is a psycho-political continuum. He seeks to produce a general theory of public space, adapted to an era of total mediatization, developing an ontology of media flow that he calls \u201c\u00adtheory of spheres.\u201d Spheres are defined as \u201cloci of inter-animal resonance where the manner in which living creatures are together is transformed into a plastic <\/em>power<\/em>.\u201d^{5<\/sup><\/a><\/span>} 5 <\/a> - Ibid., 42.<\/span> Sloterdijk often describes human spheres as \u201cerotico-aesthetic greenhouses,\u201d underlining their role in the production of comfortable interiors favourable to growth. In a spherical perspective, the human situation is indeed the outcome of a \u201cfertile self-generated plastic evolution\u201d; and Sloterdijk, unabashedly jubilant, can\u2019t help but remark that following the favourable conditions that presided over human greenhouses, \u201cmankind is on the road to beauty.\u201d ^{6<\/sup><\/a><\/span>} 6 <\/a> - Sloterdijk, La domestication de l\u2019\u00eatre<\/em> (Paris: Mille et une nuits, 2000), 54.<\/span> As an example, Sloterdijk mentions human faces, which, he says, \u201chave, one after the other, raised themselves above the animal form simply through reciprocal contemplation,\u201d concluding that it is \u201cin the facial commerce between mothers and children, in the field of transition between the animal and the human, that we see the first true plastic surgery among human beings.\u201d^{7<\/sup><\/a><\/span>} 7 <\/a> - Sloterdijk, Sph\u00e8res<\/em>, 180,187.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n
Spherical luxuriance and its anthropogenetic (human-producing) effects obviously go beyond the face; if the realm of the sphere is where one lives to the full, it is also the place of predilection\u2014and of selection\u2014of formosa<\/em>, of the beautiful, round form. Such is the context in which I would like to investigate what is likely Shu Yong\u2019s best-know series of works to date: Bubble Woman<\/em> (2007). The series presents a pair of \u00adblown-up breasts of extraordinary size (1.8 metres in diameter), attached to, if not born by, diminutive Barbie-sized female figures. Depending on one\u2019s point of view and the posture given the figurines, their chest may seem like a bodily extension thrust purposefully forward, as if wielding a massive weapon of seduction, or the almost autonomous existence of these monstrous globes may have the opposite effect of casting the poor figure as a woman suspended and immobilized by her burdensome load. Either way, spectators are momentarily transfixed by the improbable mammary spheres; only afterwards do we question the role of the female figurine in the background.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Until very recently, one could see ads promoting breast implants on Chinese television networks any time of the day. Yong said how fascinated he was by these images, where \u201ca flat chest slowly changes into round and full breasts, like blowing up balloons.\u201d^{8<\/sup><\/a><\/span>} 8 <\/a> - Kitty Bu, \u201cBigger is not better for China \u2018breast\u2019 sculptor,\u201d [online at: http:\/\/uk.reuters.com\/].<\/span> In a highly competitive job \u00admarket, in a society where images of Western women tend to be \u00adpresented as models of prestige and beauty, plastic surgery is often considered a means of improving one\u2019s employability. Chinese authorities estimate that around 2.4 billion dollars are spent on plastic surgery in China every year\u2014the equivalent of more than a million operations. Besides breast implants, the relatively simple and similarly affordable operations of eyelid surgery and nasal bridge enhancing rhinoplasty have also become popular. By asking the question, \u201cHow Big Do We Want Our Breasts To Be?\u201d (the title of one of the exhibitions in which he presented this work), Yong says he wishes to cultivate an appreciation for the natural and more \u00addiscrete \u00adcurves that characterize most Chinese women.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
$\"\"$
Shu Yong<\/strong>
Chinese Myth – Boy and Girl Attendants of Fairies-Kylin Gives Son<\/em>, 2008.
Photo: permission Galerie Urs Meile, Beijing-Lucerne<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\u5a92\u4f53 (meiti<\/em>), or the Chinese Media-Body<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\nIt is no coincidence that the most mediatized of contemporary Chinese artists chose to thematize the unique situation of these sculptural \u00adoutgrowths. In view of a strong theory of the media, Yong\u2019s \u00adoutlandish chests seem at once to be nearly autonomous and \u00adintrinsically \u00adrelational\u2014the<\/em> \u5973n\u00fc as pure media element<\/em>? In his production, and beyond the civic and moral values he attributes to his sculptural \u00adinterventions, Yong follows an intuition that resonates silently within the very concept of media in Chinese. He seems to have managed to all but explicitly \u00adrender this intuition in a recent exhibition he curated and presented at the DUOLUN museum of contemporary art in Shanghai, in April 2008: \u201c\u8eab\u4f53\u5a92\u4f53 shenti meiti, Body <\/em>Media<\/em>.\u201d^{9<\/sup><\/a><\/span>} 9 <\/a> - Note that the expression media-body in Chinese is almost a redundancy: the first character, \u8eab(shen<\/em>), means (living) body, while another character, \u4f53 (ti<\/em>), meaning substance-body, occurs twice.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yong\u2019s intuition of the media-body is marked by profound \u00adambivalence, one that echoes the ambivalence in the relationship between im-munity<\/em> and com-munity<\/em>. In \u201cBody Media,\u201d the text that \u00adintroduces the exhibition catalogue, Yong advocates a liberation of \u00adcorporeal \u00adpotentialities through the media. After having stated that \u201csince the beginning of human civilization, body has never acquired real freedom,\u201d and that the media are \u201cpublic tools,\u201d Young goes on to declare: \u201cThe reason why we clearly promote the concept that body is a medium is to make the \u00adindividuals and groups in this society reuse the concept of media<\/em>, emphasize the new thinking of body. . . . When body is drastically developed as a cultural and spiritual resource, the powers of body will show <\/em>up<\/em>.\u201d^{10<\/sup><\/a><\/span>} 10 <\/a> - Shu Yong (ed.), Body Media <\/em>(Beijing: Tang Contemporary Art, 2008). This and the following quotes are all from the text of this catalogue (available online at: http:\/\/www.tangcontemporary.com\/en\/exhibitions\/zl1.asp?id=45).<\/span> (My emphasis.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I would tend to read in this excerpt an attempt to express something like a bodily power capable of resisting and interrupting the flow of mass-media. I assume this is what Yong is trying to say when, a little further on, he declares \u201cthe coming of [a] personal medium era\u201d (\u4e2a\u4eba\u5a92\u4f53). Yet, such an interpretation has the disadvantage of going against the \u00ademinently mass-media nature of his own practice. The solution may lie in an \u00adenigmatic \u00adpassage, one imbued with the awkwardness that \u00adcharacterizes the \u00adconcluding portions of his text: \u201cWe believe that the personal medium will become a mature medium and harmonically coexist with all kinds of \u00admature media in the future.\u201d To make some kind of sense from this \u00admishmash, one should realize that when a film or a work is censored in China, it is often said to be not \u201cmature\u201d enough for public \u00adconsumption. And the harmoniousness is doubtless the slogan of Hu Jintao\u2019s \u00adgovernment, as well as a key signifier traversing all Chinese tradition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yong may simply be trying to blur his tracks, to preempt censors\u2019 condemnations. But one might also read in this apparent confusion the signs of a national will and feeling that has, without a doubt, been the underlying tone of Chinese life in recent years, and with which Yong, by the very nature of his work, can\u2019t help but have deep affinities. I would tend to favour the latter interpretation, especially when considering The National Anthem<\/em>, one of his latest series of public performances. Wandering into a Christian church one day, Yong was suddenly struck by the power of the religious hymns that he heard. \u201cOnce ritualized and popularized, this simple thing creates such an incredible effect and sense of power.\u201d He then began to organize collective performances that involved no more nor less than singing the Chinese national anthem. \u201cMany of us haven\u2019t had a chance to sing the national anthem since we left school. . . . I wish to make the ceremony of the national hymn a daily ritual and to have it continually realized in living environments.\u201d One might do well to recall that Shu Yong had once expressed the wish that the act of blowing soap bubbles would become a collective ritual, that is, \u201can action that purifies the soul and builds faith.\u201d Endless conjectures attend any attempt to comment on Shu Yong\u2019s extraordinary forthrightness in conceiving his role as artist-\u00admediator of bodies in China\u2019s magico-national bubblescape.^{11<\/sup><\/a><\/span>} 11 <\/a> - The latest news (December 28, 2008) has Shu Yong and several hundred guests dressed in red togas singing the national anthem during a wedding in Beijing. The story doesn\u2019t mention whether the artist presided over the ceremony.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n
Translated from the French by Ron Ross<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n
Erik Bordeleau, Shu Yong<\/div>\n
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