Since aaajiao and I are in different time zones that are 12 hours apart, we did this interview through Wechat, the ubiquitous (and superior) Chinese version of WhatsApp. I had always assumed that a technology like Wechat could increase the efficiency of our work. Yet this article is being published, finally, 7 months after the first time we met at Frieze New York 2015, where he created a universe through Chinese medicine, tattoos and the fractal theory. The process seems to reflect the underlying meaning of his latest show—at Yang Gallery in Beijing, Untitled—we can never be sure of outcomes when dealing with variables like human beings.
Installation View at Frieze New York 2015. Photo by Shih-yu Hsu. Courtesy Shih-yu Hsu.
Xu Wenkai, known as aaajiao, is a new media artist from an engineering background. His artform exists in various online identities that blur the boundary between the virtual and the reality. In Cloud.data, for example, the audience sees images of clouds floating in the sky through screens hanging above, while also experiencing the stillness of nature in a karesansui (Japanese-style rock gardens) installation of artificial garden stones.
Shih-yu Hsu (SYH): Why choose “new media” as your primary medium? Do you find any difference now, compared to the time you began to use technology and code to make art?
aaajiao: Honestly, I didn’t have many choices when I began to make art. Because I studied engineering, beginning my artist career using programming seemed a logical choice for me. Of course, I’ve noticed that my perspectives on art are different from those who studied art in school. It’s interesting and inspiring at the same time to see how people think from different disciplines. That’s why I frequently collaborate with other people. I have to say I still feel more comfortable making art by programming and using digital technologies.
I do feel things have changed since I started to use this medium both in terms of my approach and the art world. When I began to make art, interactive art and kinetic art were prevailing. But works just based on new technology without deep thinking behind them are easily outdated. Currently, I’m trying to make my work more effective in conveying my ideas, something long-standing and classical.
SYH: In your early works, you discussed a lot about the boundary between virtual and reality, and the finite and infinite possibilities each world represents. Why do you assume the virtual world is infinite? I think codes and programs have their limits.
aaajiao: Well, if I modified the system time on a computer, I can make a folder from the past or from the future, depending on the time that I set. Therefore, the world that a computer creates has all kinds of possibilities. That’s why I think codes and programs represent the possibilities of infinity. By following certain rules and logics, I’m able to create a world that is ever-evolving. The boundary of finiteness and infinity is not clear, just as the virtual world and reality are not mutually exclusive.
SYH: Could you talk about how you feel about some of the differences between the American art scene and the Chinese scene?
aaajiao: Our meeting was the first time I’ve had a solo exhibition in an art fair, but honestly there was nothing special about Frieze. I wasn’t surprised. Nowadays, information is circulated so quickly that it’s not difficult to get. That said, in the US, the way people look at your artwork is different than in Europe. There, people are more open-minded and don’t have any assumptions about my work.
Aaajiao predicts that in the near future, a more rational form of humans, free of doubts, uncertainty and fear, will arise to advantage of the full possibilities of the world of information. In an age when information circulates faster than ever before, an artist like aaajiao can share images of his art as gifs to use in Wechat or Facebook. New media is now old—and to aaajiao, that’s no problem.
gif developed by aajiao for Untitle.
Where the title of this interview came from.
