Techno-Linguistic:

a future perfect
speaking in
the past imperfect
24 September24 October, 2014
at Art Restaurant, Shanghai
participating artists:
aaajiao (Xu Wenkai)
Wu Juehui
Wang Yuyang
curated by Zian Chen
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Introduction:
Art Restaurant Shanghai presents Techno-
Linguistic: A Future Perfect Speaking In The
Past Imperfect, a special program that aims at an
investigation towards the practices of the younger
generations of Chinese contemporary new media
artists. It encompasses the recent works of Wu
Juehui, Wang Yuyang, aaajiao (aka Xu Wenkai),
and attempts at disclosing of a unique perspective
regarding their ethnical appropriation of digital
technology within their art practices. It also makes
manifest their shared languageone that has been
inherited from the logic of the new media itself. It is,
as suggested by the title, a new syntactical structure
that appears to have guided the thought processes
of the artists.This linguistic structure points towards
the artists adoption of a particular structure of
consciousness that is frst and foremost object-
oriented. It certainly appears to echo what has been
discussed as the specifc condition of art making
today, that is, the age of the post-internet as what
defnes the premise upon which aesthetic decisions
are seen to be negotiated by the artists. The
resultant art works as the consequences of these
negotiations, then exemplifes the role that digital
technology plays in our contemporary lives today
one which is not simply instrumental, leading its
user from achieving one end to another, outside
the subjects themselves. Instead, these works
stand as testimonies to the productive agency of its
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very temporal materiality. The peculiar temporality,
or tense of techno-linguistic, affects the users
and the utterances directly, partakes in aesthetic
decision-making processes, and thus reversing
the conventional notion of artist autonomy. By
prying open potentialities for the artists structure of
consciousness itself, digital materiality as a historical
medium also generates infnite possibilities for
those keen to move away from an anthropocentric
structure of consciousness of the human. This
particular sense of time is partly produced through
the deliberate re-assembling of a linear temporality
that has a structural similarity with the language
of program design. It presents to its addressed
public a peculiar structure of time exclusive to
its digital materiality, and henceforth a corollary
its digital materiality, and henceforth a corollary
refexive consciousness of its author, embracing all
paradoxical tendencies in its physical manifestation.
Object-orientation
This concept originated most initially from the
language of program design. In its original context,
it refers to the condition of which every designated
object behaves as both a receptacle of, as well as a
nodal point for the processing of various information.
If we were to say that this programming logic also
reversely effects new structural changes to the
human consciousness, one of its obvious benefts
would be its ability to steer the human away from its
habitual anthropocentric modes of thinking.
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Wu Juehuis Countdown (Ostrich) may be
perceived as an incipient example of this shift of
focus. By physically locking the viewers head
within the device, the habitual structure of human
consciousness is invited to become suspended,
such that something else may be allowed to occur
in its place. If this work can be said to epitomize
that watershed of the interest from the human to
the object, then it suffce to claim that this mode of
thought is seen to be nascent, and perhaps have
begun with Xu Wenkais earlier engagement with
cybernetic theories in his previous Poor Mining and
Water Measuring. Through investigations into the
various systems and their programming languages,
such as data-mining, email etc., Xu ensures that
each exploration also exposes the very material
qualities of each programming language in the
Wu Juehui
Countdown (Ostrich), timer-installation, 2011
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process. These works appear at the outset, to
have been motivated by an interest to think the
structure of emotionality belonging exclusively
to the in-human. However, we are quickly led
to realize that this designating to thinking of the
sensuous is a task particularly apt, owing to the
multidisciplinary nature of Xus various practices
related to technology, that the emotionality
of software and hardware is a privileged and
reserved object for the disciplinary of art,
despite the guise of a apparently programmatic
methodology.
In the case of Wang Yuyangs work, this
programming-oriented structure of consciousness
can be seen to be refected within his tactical use
of the digital mediums autonomous spontaneity. It
thereby alludes to a potential relationship between
aaajiao (Xu Wenkai)
Limited Landscape, Unlimited, video installation, 2014
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the programmatic operation of a digital language,
as well as the particularly human experience of
the artistic creativity process. This type of creative
process preserves a certain autonomy of the
object, and thereby suggests a resistance of the
dictatorial authorship in its coming into being. This
characteristic is particularly conspicuous within the
sculptural work Cheating. The matter designated
to deliver its formal qualities are carefully chosen
organic substances, such as brass, steel, wood,
granite, leather among others. The concomitant
aesthetic value of the work then, can be said to
derive from not simply the formal qualities of the
object itself, but perhaps precisely the slippage
between viewers expectations for, and later reading
of, the work, owing to an attachment to the organic
materials, that despite designated as that which
Wang Yuyang
Cheating, generative sculpture, 2014
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delivers the works formal aesthetic qualities, does
not inform the very digital process that brought it
into being most initially. Ultimately, the viewer is
presented with such a dis-analogous deception,
where the sculptures inherently pivotal digital logic
becomes glided over as secondary.
A future perfect speaking in the past imperfect
If these artists can be said to be confronting with
a radical new linguistic (techno-linguistic) structure
as demanded by materiality of their chosen digital
medium as such, then it suffce to say that their work
concomitantly reveals a rather unusual relationship
with time. Through this strange encounter, the
object-referent taken from the past is seen to have
been projected into a future perfect scenario.
If we were to make the attempt to translate this
peculiar temporality into an otherwise conventional
human time, we would arrive at the aberrant
temporality as denoted by the subtitle as in the case
when one recalls the now historical event of the
science fction genre. The aforementioned sentence
structure therefore is the metaphor of this show,
denoting that the manupulation of the sense of time
can be a critical response for these artists to tackle
with their new-mediality.
Wang Yuyangs sculpture Cheating, as well as the
digital landscape-making in Wu Juehuis Mistake
Creature and aaajiaos Limited Landscape,
Unlimited would be precisely the examples that would
show off their apparent concern for this expanded
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notion of temporality that is derived through this
strange confrontation. The result of which the
visible logic of the specifcally object-oriented digital
language, otherwise known to be the grammar of a
techno-linguistic.
In Wang Yuyangs previous works, he collaged the
logic of binary numeral system that supported the
Western metaphysic of Presence, with a physical
installation of a black box of the photographic camera,
to make manifest the aforementioned logic in the
material world (Let There Be Light). This could be
seen as an attempt to transpose a digital language
within a wider genealogy of materiality that would
subvert our conventional notion of a linear temporality.
Taking the lead from their aesthetic decisions, we are
invited to ponder over the outcome of their creative
process as not simply a reinvention of both the notion
of zaojing (landscape making), as well as shangwu
(object appreciation), but also the disclosing of a
potential kinship between landscape making and the
much later western notion of the spectacle.
The resultant artworkthat is the strange outcome
of this refection can be understood as a product
bearing traces of generative art, while bearing as a
statement towards a refexive critique of the modern
image as spectacle. For example, Wu Juehuis
Mistake Creature can be seen to have taken on the
formal aesthetics of the complete blackout in order
to effect this sense of critical-refexivity. In doing so,
what was effectively a historically validated formal
content of landscape making becomes displaced
as such. What took its place instead, are only the
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contours of its older referents, delineating only
inherently indeterminate shapes that are then
subsequently animated through digital mechanical
operations. Here we have a schematic representation
of landscape-spectacle (both jing in Chinese)
in this digital form, marking the condition of the
resultant kinetic installation. This becomes then, that
recognizable newthat specifcally contemporary
aesthetic object of the landscape-spectacle. It
embodies both the past, and the futural. An aesthetic
judgment of which must bring about refections of the
digital materiality, as well as spectacle of the past.
As for Xu Wenkais construction of digital landscape-
spectacle in Limited Landscape, Unlimited, Obj.3
and Obj.4, what is observable is a conscious re-
appropriation of the traditional formal content of
landscape as object of interest for the digital screen.
Wu Juehui
Mistake Creature, kinetic installation, 2014
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By subjecting the traditional motif to yet a different
lineage of critiquethat of the image as spectacle,
we are invited to witness an extension of the human
consciousness into the virtual space. The unconscious
eradicating of the virtual/actual boundary, also meant
a trespassing of the human boundary from the
machine. The artists attempt at making explicit the
nature of digital art making as a process of alternation
between worlds (virtual and actual, online and offine),
also opens up the possibility for us to approach such
formal practice as that which exposes a peculiar in-
human agency so characteristic and pertinent of our
time. By exploring these perceived gaps generated via
this movement, thus expands the existing discursive
space. The artist is then able to maximize previously
overlooked potentialities in order to generate new
possibilities for creativity.
Zian Chen (translated by Zou Zhao)
aaajiao (Xu Wenkai)
Obj.3, video installation, 2014
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List of exhibited artworks:
aaajiao (Xu Wenkai)
Obj.3, video installation, 2014
Obj.4, video installation, 2014
Limited Landscape, Unlimited, video installation, 2014
Wu Juehui
Countdown (Ostrich), timer-installation, 2011
Mistake Creature, kinetic installation, 2014
Offine Eye, interactive installation documented by
video, 2014
Wang Yuyang
2 In 1201406, mixed media painting, 2014
Cheating, generative sculpture, 2014
Ecstasy, generative painting, 2014
BreathFire Extinguisher and Cabinet,
kinetic installation, 2014
Villain, generative painting, 2014
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Selected biographies:
aaajiao (Xu Wenkai) lives and works in Shanghai.
As a multi-disciplinary practitioner, he has been
invited to various events, including both editions of
International Triennial of New Media Art Beijing (2011,
2014), Pandamonium, Momentum, Berlin (2014), and
The West Bund Architecture and Contemporary Art
Biennale, Shanghai (2013) amongst many others.
Wu Juehui based in Hangzhou where he teaches for
China Academy of Art. Wu has participated in many
national and international media art exhibitions and
festivals, such as Eyebeam 2014 Annual Showcase,
NY, ZERO1 Biennial, CA (2012), International Triennial
of New Media Art, Beijing (2011, 2014), and The
Creators Project, Beijing (2012).
Wang Yuyang based in Beijing and teaches in The
Central Academy of Fine Art. He has participated
numerous group shows including the inaugural
exhibition of Long Museum West Bund (2014),
International Triennial of New Media Art, Beijing
(2011, 2014), the 9th Shanghai Biennial and the 4th
Guangzhou Triennial (both in 2012).
Zian Chen is writer based in London. He has recently
curated Collected Matters (2013) at ICC, Sapporo and
Fictional Exhibition as a contribution for Leap (2014).