www.hipic.org

ShanghART Gallery is pleased to present hipic – an innovative online project devoted to a hybrid and elusive form of expression, and a platform for potential endless visual flow.


hipic operates as a globally synchronized image archive that receives, collects, and diffuses pictures via the internet to a variety of visual poles, including public screens and exhibitions, at a pace of one picture per minute. The project was initiated in Shanghai in late 2007 by a group of artists, including Yang Zhenzhong, Xu Zhen and Huang Kui, to create scenarios in which boundaries are deliberately suspended and confused.

Mixing the real with the fictional, the near with the far, and the past with the present, hipic plays simultaneously in galleries and public spaces displaying constant and fluctuating elements. hipic captures imaginations worldwide, in which certain features are highlighted and strengthened, while other details lose their reality and become abstracted.

With its infinite number of possibilities, hipic produces a screen of the mediated reality we live in, and exploits contemporary communication, information and virtual technologies. At the same time, it remains part of the connected and globalized world that it maps, but one that offers material to test the boundaries on liberties offered by art institutions and society.

hipic creates a temporary autonomous zone where relationships and interconnections are reset, before slipping into the system of meanings. The itinerant locations of the screens are reflective of the fluid channels through which information spreads, a dynamic contest of codification and neutralization, where what appears as the everyday conditions of technological mediation and consumption is at stake. Technology is a critical player in this process but its role is essentially that of catalyst and intermediary: hipic enables image exchange and experiences between unlikely groups or individuals.

In this we find the essence of hipic’s nomadic response to the borders between the spaces we occupy and the ideas that occupy us. In a time characterized by information broadcast and exchange, hipic raises the question of what is and isn’t part of the network. With globalization and the world wide web, which is a misnomer in itself, hipic seeks out the reality of this assumed mapping and reach. For the audience the effect never fails to be entertaining and revealing.

Further information, please visit www.hipic.org

"It’s all right" in Hangzhou-opening December 15

Organizer: China Academy of Art, New Media Department
Co-organizer: Shanghai BizArt Art Center
Opening: December 15th, 2006, from 17:00 to 20:00

Curators: Geng Jianyi, Fan Li, Shen Ligong, Yang Zhenzhong, Xu Zhen
Participating artists:

Chen Xiaoyun, Chu Yun, Cui Shaohan, Feng Chen, Fei Pingguo, Geng Jianyi, He An, Huang Kui, Jiang Zhuyun, Jin Feng, Jin Feng (lao), Kan Xuan, Li Wen, Liu Wei, Peng Yun, Shao Yi, Shen Ligong, Shi Qing, Shi Yong, Sun Huiyuan, Sun Xun, Wang Xiaofeng, Wang Xin, Wu Juehui, Xu Zhen, Yang Lu, Yang Qingqing, Yang Zhenzhong, Zhang Ding, Zhang Ruyu, Zhang Lehua, Zhang Liaoyuan, Zhang Moyi, Zhang Peili, Zhang Xutao, Zhang Qing, Zheng Guogu, Zhong Su, Zhu Yu, Zhu Yun

Venue opening hours: December 16th to 20th, 2006
Everyday from 10:00 a.m. to 17:00
Venue: Hu Qing Tang Museum of Traditional Chinese Medicine
No. 95, Da Jin Xiang, Qing He Fang, West Lake District, Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province
(Factory at the back of the group of ancient houses, at the feet of the mountain Wushan)
Website: http://www.nma.com.cn/nqnp/

The idea of organizing the contemporary art exhibition, "It’s all right", was suddenly decided as we found the perfect exhibition venue: an old factory of the Hu Qing Yu Tang Museum of Traditional Chinese Medicine about to be demolished in the town center. The new media art department of the China Art Academy and BizArt Art Center took this decision in July and maintained the same dynamic attitude since then: from the concept of the show to its accomplishment, although the whole process lasted six months only. This wouldn’t have been possible without the efforts of each of the participants. The main problem the exhibition has to face now is the unforeseeable elements. The new media art department of the China Art Academy and BizArt Art Center always focused on each artist’s progression in the production of their works. Each show include some risks: it is sometime uncertain for the artists themselves to know what the last shape of their works will be as they enter the exhibition room. The artworks projects were severely selected on the basis of various criteria of quality: the selection was sometime cruel to the point that it nearly violated art rules. This constitutes a particular aspect of this exhibition that can be seen before its opening. Here again, each artist showed their understanding and their responsibility sense when collaborating. This conscientious attitude exceeded all our expectations. Until now, the exhibition’s process and preparation was fully synchronized, which reveals the efforts of each of its participant.