Industrialisation and Cao Fei's RMB City

Industrialisation in the late 1800s, and today.

Dynamism of a dog on a Leash (1912) Giacomo Balla

RMB City (2007-9)  Cao Fei

The artists of the late 1800's and early 1900's, in Europe, were influenced by the Industrial revolution.

1. What and when was the Industrial Revolution?

According to the wikipedia, the Industrial Revolution was a period from 1750 to 1850 where changes in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, transportation, and technology had a profound effect on the social, economic and cultural conditions of the times.

Both paintings featured on this blog, that are from the early 1900s were painted by Modernist painters from the group called 'Futurists'. The Futurists celebrated the machine, and objects in motion. Their primary objective was to depict movement, which they saw as symbolic of their commitment to the dynamic forward thrust of the 20th century.

2. Research both Modernist paintings in order to comment on the subject matter, form and style used to celebrate the machine and motion in each painting. Answer the question in 2 parts for each painting.

From The City Rises, buildings in construction in a suburb can be seen with chimneys in the upper part, but the most of the space is occupied by men and horses, melted together in a dynamic effort. Boccioni thus emphasizes some among the most typical elements of futurism, the exaltation of human work and the importance of the modern town, built around modern necessities. The painting portrays the construction of a new city, with developments and technology.In this painting the naturalistic vision of the previous works is partly abandoned, replaced by a more dynamic vision.

In Giacomo Balla's Dynamism Of A Dog On Leash，we can almost feel the frantic energy of the little dog, it's feet shuffling quickly, it's tail wagging excitedly, and the hurried footsteps of the person trying to keep up. The picture's sense of movement is created out of stark black forms and weird flowing lacey veils. It illustrates the precepts of the Technical Manifesto of Futurist Painting that, "On account of the persistency of an image upon the retina, moving objects constantly multiply themselves; their form changes like rapid vibrations, in their mad career. Thus a running horse has not four legs, but twenty, and their movements are triangular."

Cao Fei's RMB City (2007-9) refers to China's recent rapid industialisation and urbanization.

(www.artspace.org.nz/exhibitions/2009/cafeintopia.asp)

3. Research Cao Fei's RMB City (2007-9) in order to comment on this work in more depth. I.e. describe the images that has she used in her digital collage that refer to China's present and history, and explain why has she used these images.

In Cao Fei’s work RMB City, she uses the images of Tiananmen Square, CCTV new building, Shanghai Pearl TV Tower, Panda, single wheel, schedule, villages and other reality scene. RMB City is a platform for experimental creative activities, one in which Cao Fei and her collaborators use different mediums to test the boundaries between virtual and physical existence.

4. RMB City is described as an utopia/dystopia. Comment on what these terms mean, and how they can be applied to the work.

The term has been used to describe both intentional communities that attempt to create an ideal society.Utopia described in the dictionary means, an ideal and perfect place, especially in its social, political and moral aspects of the problem.  however dystopia exactly the opposite, in the extremely harsh living conditions ofdeprivation, oppression, or terror, a country. In Fei's work RMB city, it describe the fast development of China now,  but on the other side it bring the serious pollution problem and decrease the life standard.

5. Although the Modernist paintings and the contemporary digital work have emerged from different contexts, there are also many similarities. Comment on the similarities that you can see in the work. Look at the moving digital image at vimeo.com/4272260, if you have not already researched it.

In my opinion, there are many similarities between Fei's work and Modernist paintings. RMB city use modern technology to communicate, but the idea about "celebrate" and "furture" are same as many modernist paintings.

References:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Revolution

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RMB_City

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futurism