Shanghai rules!
An urge to check email causes another trip to the evil empire. It doesn't let us connect, but the coffee is still good. Xu Tan and Jin Jiangbo arrive and take us to see a multimedia exhibition at the Zendal Museum back in the Pudong area.
Jin Jiangbo has an interesting piece in the show: the audience can stick acupuncture needles into a medical doll. This causes a video projection to display various computer animations corresponding to the acupuncture points. The animations are political cartoons. Jin Jiangbo was also part of the Shanghai Exhibit at Samtidsmuseet in Oslo last year where he was responsible for the Chinese part of an interactive webcam project that was a collaboration with my friend Laura Beloff. From Zendal we drove to the Shanghai Science and Technology Museum before heading to an opening at BizArt. Two resident artists were showing paintings and video works, and we were introduced to the crew in the back room. BizArt has a non profit gallery where they show young artists, while they make money on various art/business schemes like design, publications, services etc. We had dinner with our hosts before hooking up with the BizArt crew and going to a Kareoke TV place where we got a private room with a TV and 2 microphones and a selection of Chinese and American pop songs. I have to admit Kareoke is not my favorite thing, but I like to watch. Even in Shanghai the world is small - I run into someone I know by chance downstairs in the internet cafe. Rows and rows of computers with youth playing networked games in the late hours. Life is strange. Fly home in a taxi on countless ramps and highways.
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