'Modern Art: an unexpected swirl' is just that - modern art.

Don't forget DuChamp's 1917 "Fountain." Seems like Du Zhenjun was simply putting a "new media" spin on R. Mutt's most famous work. And as far as interactive art is concerned, Pierre Pinoncelli had that idea in January '06. Here's an old article about it on nytimes.com: http://travel.nytimes.com/2006/01/07/arts/design/07duch.html

Apologies for making this a full post; alas, no comments allowed on the original "unexpected swirl."

Never Say
The Sun Never Sets on the Maoist Empire

Few Remaining Works of Maoist Propaganda Reinvent Themselves in Western Commodity Fetish Niche Market

Upon arriving at the Shanghai Propaganda Poster Art Center’s dank basement-level one room collection which apparently constitutes a museum, I was dismayed to see ubiquitous “no photo” signs, as I had purposefully waited until my camera was repaired to go. Of course, they failed to deter me. I took photos anyways, but did so furtively, something which combined with my inexperience with shutter speed and aperture settings probably adversely affected the quality of the photos I managed to take when the guards weren’t shuffling to and fro. The museum was (as my response will be) arranged chronologically, with one large introductory information plaque at the front and several smaller plaques located throughout.

1949-1952
The Founding of Peoples’ Republic of China, The Land Reform, the Korean War, and Movements Against the Three Evils and the Five Evils

The plaque introducing the first period '49-'52 noted that nearly all posters were produced not by state owned enterprises, but instead by private enterprises which had formerly produced European style commercial advertisements in the '20’s and '30’s – proof that the sweetest irony is never fictional.

The plaque cited three broad categories of influences for the works of this period; traditional silks and Lunar New Year wood cut prints, Western art, and Eastern European art and literature. Particularly strong examples from the first camp are “Good for Both Water & Boss to Develop Production” – note, that’s not a typo, the placard really said that – and “Resist U.S. and Supporting Korea for Defending Family and Motherland,” which depicts Chinese and North Korean soldiers stabbing a stars and stripes clad big bad wolf caricature crawling its way across the Korean peninsula with Chinese and North Korean dual flagpole bayonets. The influence of western political cartoons on the latter is undeniable as it is in “Raise the Peace Torch to Brighten the Whole World,” “Founding Ceremony of New China,” and “Liberate Taiwan to Realize Reunification”, all of which also appear to draw on Eastern European (Soviet Style) art. With regard to the latter, I found it interesting to see the sham idea of liberation used to support imperialist ambitions in some context other than the United States’ War on Terror.

Perhaps the strongest piece of this period was the visually stunning “Strive to Produce More to Support the Most Beloved People to Attack U.S. Imperialism” whose use of sweeping movement in depicting a worker in the bottom left corner shoveling up and to the right and a soldier in the upper right corner rifle butting a grotesque caricature of a westerner down and to the left perfectly encapsulates the sense of sweeping change and juxtaposition of optimism and playful destruction of the political scene of the period.

Despite the political climate, some works of this period depict a docile proletariat’s life as domestic bliss. Works with this type of content drew stylistically mostly from traditional silks and Lunar New Year woodcut prints to display, as the poster puts it, “[display the] abundant imagination of a happy future,” of the time.

1954-1956

Peace, Industry, Domestic Bliss

During the subsequent period '54-'56, a peaceful and stable political milieu shifted the focus of majority of the propaganda to domestic industry and social life with a few notable exceptions. Perhaps one of the most exquisite pieces in the entire exhibit, entitled “Gala Night” comes from this period. In the foreground of the piece two porcelain faced school girls are engaged in a hypnotic, simultaneously symmetric and asymmetric pas de deux under a night sky trisected by spotlights’ beams at the intersection of which a firecracker explodes, creating an amazing sense of radial symmetry and motion. The piece reminded me of an equally exquisite Hermès scarf I bought for a lady friend entitled “Parapluies d’enticelles.”

Among the more visually interesting pieces related to industry during this period were “Strive to Produce More and Better Steel” in which two brawny steelworkers ride atop a steel dragon and “More Pigs for More Fertilizer to Obtain High Yield Grain” in which an enormous sow lies in front of a wall of grain with a litter of piglets suckling at her teat. The latter for some reason brought to mind that Sylvia Plath poem “Sow, ”included at the end of this entry should anyone wish to read it.

1957-1967

The Vietnam War and Dissolution of Soviet Alliances

The information plaque for the period 1957-1967 states that masses of farmers and workers produced cartoon style posters caricaturing the “naïve thought of the overenthusiastic people under Mao’s influence at that time,” though it’s difficult to tell whether or not it references the works displayed. If it does, the works do an excellent job of maintaining the Camp sensibility of the type of propagandist works they mimic – and all original agit-prop art falls into the realm of Camp sensibility. However I’d conjecture that the plaque is most likely not referencing them, as they appear too seamlessly campy to be intentional. As Susan Sontag notes “one must distinguish between naïve and deliberate Camp. Pure Camp is always naive. Camp which knows itself to be Camp ("camping") is usually less satisfying[…] pure examples of Camp are unintentional; they are dead serious.”

The plaque also asserts that the Chinese style of propaganda posters came into its own during this period, something I disagree with. The style of this period seems to be little more than a heavy handed illustrating style, one which I can’t quite put a name to, but extends far beyond the realm of Chinese agit-prop art. Though it is hard for me to say, not being an art historian, whether it influenced Chinese agit-prop art or whether Chinese agit-prop influenced it. Given the political history though, and the degree of openness between the West and China during this period however, I’m inclined to think that similar styles emerged independently. Regardless, it would be inaccurate to say that a unique Chinese agit-prop style came into being.

1967-1971

First Four Years of the Cultural Revolution

During the period of '67-'71, the start of the Cultural Revolution, a distinctly Chinese style of agit-prop art first emerges. The subject of almost all the pieces is Mao as the “red sun whose light brightens the whole country.” In these pieces Mao’s head usually blocks the sun, something which forms a halo around his face. Note the parallels between these images and Christian religious iconography as well as depictions of Louis XIV.

It is interesting to note that throughout this period Mao becomes increasing flatter (almost Byzantine), in relation to the three dimensional world around him, increasingly distanced from the proletariat, always in the foreground when the proletariat is in the background or vice versa. In many pieces his images is depicted only on posters within a mass of proletariat. It’s almost as if the communist propaganda becomes aware of itself as propaganda. Mao becomes an image within an image (think Godard’s films within films), or rather a plurality of images within a plurality
of images.

1972 - 1979

As the cultural revolution continued in the following period, propaganda poster production wound down, lost its center, and spun out into stylistic miscellany. Mao succeeded in deifying himself visually through the propaganda, but could only do so transiently. Mortality being at odds with deification, Mao ultimately failed and failed miserably. As for the masses who, in the words of the famous sociological tenet known as Thomas theorem, “defined the situation [of Mao’s deification] as real” and thus for whom the situation became ”real in [its] consequences”, something Anatole France said comes to mind; if ten million people believe a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing -- or in this case if one billion people believe a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing. Mao’s image as a communist Helios ultimately faded; Deng Xiao Ping destroyed the vast majority of the posters when he took power, some 3000 exist in the collection of the Shanghai Propaganda Poster Art Center, now nothing but relics of a bygone era.

Contemplating questions of megalomania and arts awareness of itself as I exited, I came across a question of another sort; what visit to a communist propaganda museum wouldn’t be complete without a trip to the consumer capitalist crap fest that is the gift shop? The American side got the best of me and I ended up buying 16 postcards for 160 reminbi, most of which will be sent to my most conservative investment banker friends.

Throughout my perusing of the gift shop I couldn’t help but note, if the consumer capitalist nation-states in the West didn’t have a commodity fetish for vintage posters – remember that hideous craze like six years ago – this record of communist propaganda probably wouldn’t still exist. To the extent that the remaining images of Mao's deification does live on, it does so in an utterly ironic context.

***

Sow

Sylvia Plath

God knows how our neighbor managed to breed

His great sow:

Whatever his shrewd secret, he kept it hid

In the same way

He kept the sow--impounded from public stare,

Prize ribbon and pig show.

But one dusk our questions commended us to a tour

Through his lantern-lit

Maze of barns to the lintel of the sunk sty door

To gape at it:

This was no rose-and-larkspurred china suckling

With a penny slot

For thrift children, nor dolt pig ripe for heckling,

About to be

Glorified for prime flesh and golden crackling

In a parsley halo;

Nor even one of the common barnyard sows,

Mire-smirched, blowzy,

Maunching thistle and knotweed on her snout-

cruise--

Bloat tun of milk

On the move, hedged by a litter of feat-foot ninnies

Shrilling her hulk

To halt for a swig at the pink teats. No. This vast

Brobdingnag bulk

Of a sow lounged belly-bedded on that black

compost,

Fat-rutted eyes

Dream-filmed. What a vision of ancient hoghood

must

Thus wholly engross

The great grandam!--our marvel blazoned a knight,

Helmed, in cuirass,

Unhorsed and shredded in the grove of combat

By a grisly-bristled

Boar, fabulous enough to straddle that sow's heat.

But our farmer whistled,

Then, with a jocular fist thwacked the barrel nape,

And the green-copse-castled

Pig hove, letting legend like dried mud drop,

Slowly, grunt

On grunt, up in the flickering light to shape

A monument

Prodigious in gluttonies as that hog whose want

Made lean Lent

Of kitchen slops and, stomaching no constraint,

Proceeded to swill

The seven troughed seas and every earthquaking

continent.

Sotheby’s woos buyers from mainland China

Art.view

Asian spring

Mar 24th 2007
From Economist.com

Sotheby’s woos buyers from mainland China

ALL manner of wonderful wares have been on sale in New York during Asia Week, which ended yesterday. Cups and bowls and vases and vessels, made of everything from rhinoceros horn to porcelain, celadon and jade. But it was the auction of contemporary art, more than any other, that demonstrated how Asian buying is changing.

The contemporary auction market has expanded fast in the past two years. In 2004 Sotheby’s and Christie’s between them sold $22m-worth of contemporary Asian art, which included photography and paintings. Two years on that figure had jumped ten times, to $190m. The growth was especially steep for Sotheby’s. In 2004 its contemporary Asian art sales totalled just $3m. By 2006 they had leapt to $70m.

It was only a year ago that Sotheby’s held its first sale of contemporary Asian art in New York. Both auction houses had hosted sales in Hong Kong before that, but these offered mostly local art to local buyers.

Selling Asian art in America posed quite a different challenge.

On the one hand there were Western buyers, with a different aesthetic and history. A small number had already begun buying Chinese art in Shanghai and Beijing. But their aim was often speculative. Who knew how many more collectors might be interested, if any? And then there were the Asian, particularly mainland Chinese buyers. Sotheby’s was keen to attract more wealthy mainlanders to New York. But how?

In the event, Sotheby’s March 2006 sale brought in $13.8m, and 20 of the artists represented saw their work sell for record prices. Some pieces went for more than ten times the pre-sale estimates, though it is unclear whether this was the result of new-won popularity or a sign of Sotheby’s inexperience at setting estimates.

This year’s sale nearly doubled the 2006 figure, bringing in $25.3m, and the market is visibly more mature. Buyers were pickier, happy to bid high for select works while refusing others. A small number of artists again saw their work sell for record prices. Yue Minjun’s “Goldfish” (pictured below) shows 16 identikit Chinese men standing in line at the balustrade of a white bridge, laughing as they look down into the water at a solitary goldfish. Six bidders fought for this 1993 work, which was sold eventually to an anonymous buyer on the telephone for $1.38m against a pre-sale estimate of $700,000. None of Mr Yue’s four other pictures in the sale fetched more than $240,000. Buyers were equally particular about other lots; many sold within the estimate, while some did not sell at all.

Mr Yue’s laughing men, Zhang Xiaogang’s creepy pink babies with their outsized genitals and Zeng Fanzhi’s cartoon twins with their mask-like faces have all been bought by Westerners and Asian collectors alike. But one school—the photorealists—has an almost exclusively Chinese following. By offering 41 paintings of this kind, Sotheby’s was taking a gamble that it could attract new buyers from the mainland to New York.

To Westerners, who value the many innovations of modernist painting, such realism may seem sentimental, slavish and retrograde. But to Chinese collectors, these technically skilled artists, many of whom came of age in the 1970s, tried to see past the propaganda and capture the essential beauty of Chinese life.

Not surprisingly, women and the countryside feature strongly, but even here the images vary enormously. Works by Shanghai-born Chen Danqing depict tribal women with yaks, long woollen dresses and elaborate hairdos; prices for the artist ranged from $90,000-168,000. Wang Yidong’s “Yi River”—which fetched $801,600, more than twice the low estimate—depicts a young woman with pigtails standing on a flat stone as if edging across a river. Above her, in almost Freudian counterpoint, lies another woman (or perhaps it is the same one), asleep and possibly dreaming.

Leng Jun’s “Five Pointed Star” proved the realists’ stellar offering, realising $1.22m against a pre-sale estimate of $350,000-450,000. Painted against a black background, the star appears to be made of bits of rough scrap metal that have been folded and soldered together. The surface is depicted in minute detail, but it is the star’s symbolism that gives real feeling to the painting. It might be old and wrinkled, but despite its battered condition the star resiliently holds its form.

Sotheby’s chose well. Mainland Chinese collectors bought 22 of the photorealist paintings in the sale. Half of those lots, 11 in all, went to six mainland Chinese buyers who had never bought art in New York before.

The “Contemporary Art Asia: China, Korea, Japan” sale was at Sotheby’s, New York, on March 21st

China and 52nd. Venice Biennial

For the wonderful artists of China Pavillion, check:
http://universes-in-universe.de/car/venezia/eng/2007/tour/chn/index.htm

Yang Fudong, who will be a speaker at NYU, and Yang Zhenzhong (who was
a speaker last term) will be art of the central exhibition of the 52nd
Venice Biennial.

3030 New Photography In China, by John Millichap

3030 New Photography In China, by John Millichap

Freelance journalist and founder of 3030 Press (an organization set up to produce high-quality English-language books about all aspects of contemporary creativity in China), John Millichap worked with professor of photography Gu Zheng and contemporary artist/author Ou Ning to bring 30 of China's contemporary photographers under 30 together in an energetic photographic survey titled “3030: New Photography in China.” All artists represented in the book are using photography as a medium to speak the language of the social and economic transformation that has occurred over the past few decades. “Together these works can be seen as an attempt to highlight the possibilities and anxieties of life in modern China, as well as a powerful new sense of creative identity,” explains Millichap. Each image in the book is representative of a new generation in China whose, according to Gu Zheng's theory of Chinese personal photography, “sensibilities and character are utterly distinct and for whom the power of the image is paramount.” Chinese society has undergone a major change marked by the embrace of consumerism since the mid-1990s and one glance at any given image in Millichap's book lets the viewer feel that behind the photograph lies a story affected by such transformation. Within the pages exists scenes of love and want, distraction and politics, but most apparent are the thrilling suggestions of a new China brimming with individuals whose voices ring loudly and uniquely through the photographic lens. We're especially fond of Cao Fei's series featuring Star Wars clad figures in everyday China scenes.

Whitney Rosenberg

Collector sells £15m Turner collection to buy Chinese contemporary art

Baron Ullens is acquiring new works for his Beijing gallery
By Georgina Adam |
Posted 22 March 2007
LONDON. The Belgian collector Baron Guy Ullens
has consigned 14 Turner watercolours to auction, because he wants to
focus on contemporary Chinese art. The works, which will be sold at
Sotheby's London on 5 July, are expected to fetch £10m-£15m
($19.7m-$29.55m).

Baron Ullens has founded the first private museum for both Chinese and
international contemporary art in Beijing, which is to open in
October. Titled the Ullens Centre for the Arts, it is located in
Beijing's Dashanzi art district and its first chairman is Jan Debbaut,
former head of collections at Tate.

Guy Ullens, whose fortune derives from the food industry,
lived in China in the early years of his career, and collects
classical Chinese landscapes as well as his newest interest,
contemporary Chinese art. He acquired the Turner watercolours over the
past 20 years, some at auction, and some through dealers. Most were
kept in store at the Geneva Free Port and according to Sotheby's
specialist Henry Wemyss, there will be no problems exporting the works
out of the UK should they go to foreign buyers. Indeed, Sotheby's is
taking the group around the world, including Hong Kong and Los
Angeles, before the sale. "Turner is such an international name and
his technique of brush on paper resonates with Chinese buyers, as well
as the more traditional American collectors of his work," says Mr
Wemyss.

The Ullens collection covers everything from early, naturalistic
renditions of British coastal scenes to late, impressionistic views in
Switzerland, Germany, France, and Italy. Among the most expensive
works is a large Swiss view, The Lake Lucerne from the Landing Place
at Fluellen, probably 1807-10, estimated at £2m-£3m ($3.95m-$5.91m).
This last appeared at auction in the Wills sale at Sotheby's just two
years ago when it made £1.86m ($3.35m). Another work, Oberwesel, 1840,
carries the same estimate.

Last year saw new Turner records established for an oil and
for a work on paper: a Venetian oil, Giudecca, La Donna della Salute
and San Giorgio sold for $35.86m at Christie's New York while the
watercolour The Blue Rigi sold for £5.83m ($11m) at Christie's London.
Christie's has traditionally dominated the Turner market so the sale
of this collection, which is the biggest to come to auction since the
Munro sales in 1878 and 1879, is a coup for Sotheby's, which offered a
guarantee on the group.

modern art: an unexpected swirl down the virtual toilet and why it's the best thing since sliced bread.

Believe it or not, this title is only about 1/3 fecitious and actually 2/3 accurate.

Perhaps it also is an approximation of where I'd like to begin discussing this article's intended subject.

Oh what subject, might you ask?

Last Thursday I had the pleasure of attending the
The MOCA Shanghai Remote Control Exhibit. Needless to say I thoroughly enjoyed my visit even though I'm not always inclined to enjoy the visual arts. But the 'remote control' component of the exhibit title might just be exactly why I enjoyed this exhibit more than most other art gallery exhibits I've seen: The remote control exhibit is interactive. And to me that makes all the world in the difference as I will explain.

Just to give you an idea of my vast (cough) expanse of art knowledge...well, I once asked gallery attendants at the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdamn if they had Van Gogh's ear on display anywhere and if so whether or not I could see it. Yes, I'm still waiting on that ear.


But the Remote Control exhibit is an example of the direction that I assume contemporary art is destined to follow. This was an entirely new experience for me as I have no prior experience with actual interactive art - and I think it is exciting both for practical and ideological reasons. My title anecdote about the virtual toilet was actually inspired by a piece at the remote control show. The piece is called "Fountain" and is the creation of Du Zhenjun (both creation and designed can be seen in the picture to the right and the original picture may be found here). The picture doesn't clearly portray the nature of the exhibit so I well do my best to explain. "Fountain" is an interactive art exhibit which responds to a viewer stepping on a hidden floor switch, animating a computer screen pointed upward towards the viewer yet embedded in a cube on the floor - auspiciously rather like a toilet. The computer screen responds to the viewer's pressure on the floor switch by showing a stream of liquid (closely resembling urine) pouring into the pictured toilet bowl. At this point the critical reader might ask "what in the blazes does a virtual toilet have to do with interaction and groundbreaking art?" to which I must quell my immediate response (don't be a philistine, loser) and more maturely reply that this is visual art that can only be performed by interacting with the viewer, merging a piece of the viewer's private (and inner bathroom) life with the larger museum as a whole - making a pleasant spectacle of bodily functions, the viewer and even the public space of the museum itself.

Interactive art allows for a highly personalized interpretation of a given piece based on the viewer's opinion even moreso than perhaps the artist's original intention. Of course with any given art piece individual interpretation and criticism will always be present, but the nature of interactive art is highly personalized to the 'essence' of the viewer because the viewer often enough becomes a part of the piece. A great example of this would be the "Brainwashing as a kind of Entertainment" piece by Alexander Brant. I really wish I had a picture of this piece in particular, but even a visual example of this piece would not do it justice. The viewer is strapped into a spinning carousel and shown a generic amalgamation of news segments, contrived pictures purporting supposed common value archetypes, and occasionally the words "I agree" in English. The ride is quite disorienting and will last indefinitely until the viewer presses a large button attached to their rotating chair saying "I Agree" in English or "我同意" 在中文。After demonstrating willingness to ritually sacrifice individual opinion, the viewer is allowed out of the exhibit accompanied by a dark monotone voice that booms "You are now a good person" in English followed by ”你现在是一个好人“在中文。Overt political statements aside, my immediate reaction is that I can't believe this is actually allowed to be publically shown in China. My next reaction is to applaud the museum for being willing to support such a potentially controversial piece. I would imagine this piece touches each viewer differently, reaching out deep enough to shake the human desire to communicate as an individual. This piece, as like the piece before it, interacts with the viewer in a three dimensional space on the viewer's terms of engagement. Each piece's automation will end as soon as the viewer decides the time is appropriate, ultimately letting each spend as much or as little time is needed on a given exhibit.

In the English major tradition students are taught that once a piece is written it gains a 'life' and sort of autonomy of its own. I believe this is the same for interactive art - except that the idea is actualized in the ritual of interaction with the viewer. The piece slips out of the artist's reach and into the hands of the viewer. They too share part of the artist role as their interaction with a given piece is a form of authorship in and of itself.

Gua'er reopens!

passed on by Lisa Movius:

3/26 8pm on: Gua'er reopens! Let's get a crowd and make it a party!
挂二音乐酒吧在3月26日再开了, 大家都去吧!

Details at: http://www.sus2music.com/bar/index.htm. Hope to see y'all there!

Thursday departure + your responses

Dear everyone,

For timely departure tomorrow, please meet in our off-campus classroom
at 12:30p.m. The shuttle will depart sharp at 12.45, as arranged by
Joyce sincerely.

Re. your weekly assignment:
The blogspot is currently down, but you can still upload your
responses to the MOCA show (and for those who have not covered Pecha
Kucha, Propaganda Center) along with your visuals and pictures through
blogger.com.

In your responses, please respond to the issues and challenges of
contemporary art presentation posed by your site visit to MOCA. What
are some of the more compelling works of Remote/Control? How is
contemporary art/new media merging with physical space? What do you
perceive as failures and successes? What are the conditions for art
display? How do you measure museum services and professionalism? etc.
As I said, feel free to be as loving and as critical as you'd like.

All the best with this, and see you tomorrow for a day of
introductions by key players in Shanghai!

Defne

"IMAGE-NATION: Works by New Generation of Chinese Artists"

"IMAGE-NATION: Works by New Generation of Chinese Artists"

Featuring works by: Chao Ziyi & Chao Ziwei, Chen Yun, Chen Yunquan, Guo Peng, He Jia, He Jiandan, Jiao Xingtao, Liang Binbin, Liu Danhua, Liu Lifen, Ren Zhe, Wang Mian, Wang Zi, Xia Hang, Xue Tao, Yang Bo, Yin Yanhua, Zhang Hua, Zhao Guanghui

Exhibition: 18 March till 10 May 2007

Vernisage/ Opening party: 17 March with the attendance of several artists

IMAGE-NATION is an exhibition which reflects the interests of a younger group of artists who no longer take as their subject the political content which widely characterises the western view of the work of their predecessors of the 1980s and early 90s. Political art produced today has at times recently become a parody of itself and no longer holds the significance or impact that work from the 80s and early 90s did. Collectors are becoming more discerning and are less easily swayed by images of pandas, Mao or the colour red; and seasoned auction goers are becoming more selective when it comes to political art post-1997. The artists in the present exhibition were too young to feel directly the impact of Tiananmen Square, and are rather affected by the new commercial and cultural openness, the rapid urbanisation and transformation of the cities, the incessant bombardment of consumer culture and the influence of mass media. The present exhibition takes as its starting point three different categories of cars, cartoons, and daily life. Through each of these subjects artists give an independent insight into life in China today.

The aim of the exhibition is to show that although the main collecting base for young Chinese artists for the short term remains in the west, that artists are no longer merely pandering (no pun intended) to a Western preconception of China or cynically producing political pop for the export market (although this clearly persists). There are artists who are exploring their own cultural identity, engaging with popular culture, reflecting the contemporary experience of daily life in China, and concerning themselves with issues and influences that directly affect them - an engagement which brings about an art with an independence of outlook and one which will in time bring them a domestic as well as international audience.

Contrasts gallery Principal: 181 JiangXi Middle Rd, Shanghai 20002

Gallery Hours: Monday to Sunday 10am -10pm

"Remote Control" at MoCA

Shanghai’s MoCA has a cool “new media” show up right now called “Remote Control.” It includes the work of artists from both within and without Shanghai and China.

The term “new media,” as it pertains to art, refers to an ever-changing approach to the creation of artwork that is usually based on the use of recent technology. “New media” is thus amorphous and tough to categorize or pin down. With regards to “Remote Control,” however, it is fair to say that “new media” means lights, screens, flashing stuff, and a lot of “interactive installation.”

New media shows are, in a way, fundamentally about experimentation; the point is to use new stuff. What is often most interesting, though, about “new media” art is experiencing it in the context of the contemporary art world – seeing how things are changing, what is available. But when a whole bunch of new gear is put together in an art show, the slope becomes slippery and it is easy for it to start to look like just a bunch of new gear – and not Art; the good pieces in the show get lost in the wash of cool tech.

And there are good pieces. One large video installation is an ever expanding video loop, the contents of which is made up of one second video clips that are captured when a museum-goer steps on a specially designed mat. You step on the mat, watch the big screen as a camera in front of the mat captures and relays your image, and then watch as the video continues on with your clip stored for future play. I thought of fame and celebrity and hope and desperation and Youtube.

Pecha Kucha in Review x2

Kung Pow Kara beat me to it but here are some extra thoughts...

Pecha Kucha night came back to Shanghai for its 5th installment last Thursday, March 8. The event took place at Kong Gallery located on the top floor of The Source on Xinle lu, a streetwear clothing store. This particular location seemed quite fitting considering the large focus on street art and culture in Shanghai as presented by gallery curator and photographer Rodney Evans and his partner Nick Barham.

Pecha Kucha, which literally translates to “Sound of Conversation,” in Japanese was conceived by Tokyo based architects Astrid Klein and Mark Dytham. The event is meant to serve as a forum for young artists to meet and show their artwork on a public platform. Conceived only in 2003, Pecha Kucha nights have spread to venues across the globe due to such an overwhelmingly positive response.

The really clever thing about Pecha Kucha, though, is the abbreviated format. Each artist has the stage for exactly 6 minutes and 40 seconds, allowing them to show 20 pieces of their work in 20-second snippets, keeping the material concise and the interest level up at all times. Pecha Kucha Shanghai (which began less than a year ago in May, 2006) seems to have a way of attracting an especially wide variety of artists and art lovers from all over the world to discuss any and all types of media. At the most recent installment at Kong gallery, 14 artists presented their work in realms ranging from photography, architecture, graffiti and music just to name a few.

Admittedly, the collective works were a bit contrived, allowing a few presenters to wax philosophical on flowery issues like the meaning of true art. Some of the misses included (but were not limited to) photo sets of various rooms in their natural lighting and some rehearsed prose on street art and all of its connotations. On the other hand, there were a handful of artists who came prepared with really innovative and thoughtful presentations. They ranged from fresh web designs, computer graphics and streetwear design made by quirky design duo Lin Lin and Sam Jacobs, to a fascinating thesis discussing a hybrid of architecture and fashion design as inspired by a mythical fairytale presented by architecture student from Canada, Andrea Lin.

Pecha Kucha nights give all of the artists a chance to talk about their vision and put themselves out there, making the experience perhaps a little fluffier than I would have liked it to be, but also inviting some pretty interesting open-ended discussions. Not to mention the vibe was overall quite friendly and surprisingly un-pretentious, although the cheap drinks certainly helped to lighten the mood. If anything, who can deny a 30 yuan entrance fee and some prime people watching?

Source Gallery- Pecha Kucha- WAH WAH.
I was assigned to go to the Source Gallery for my Art in Translation Class, which I visited prior to the Pecha Kucha event. The gallery was clearly an after thought to the store, and I doubt that most of the shoppers would even veer right on the stairway to enter the space. What I saw was an inconsistent display, featuring photos that represented three subcultures of punk, hip hop, and rave. The atmosphere was a bit too cutesy and seemed to place handicap the actual photographs, thus leaving me with no sentiments of “fear, distrust, anger, or destruction,” which was the point of the show. The crux of the show was Shanghai street fashion, represented by a wall of ordinary people rocking their everyday wear in addition to posed shots of stereotypical youth fashion- Goth, skater, rock star, etc.
The space transformed all together the night of Pech Kucha. The gallery was no longer about displaying art, rather, holding an event that promoted it. The original artwork in the space became obsolete in the presence of the speakers, and as time wore on, the event seemed to be more about socializing than appreciating. I was surprised, however, at the huge crowd the event did draw, especially after leaving the event not loving it or hating it.
For the most part, I was disengaged. I was pleased with how the event was run, the point being to expose a bulk of artists in a limited amount of time. This result, however, was a win/lose situation. Win in terms of the audience, who were able to get a snippet of who they liked and who bored them to death, and a lose situation in terms of the artist, who had to expose themselves and their work in such a limited time frame. Because of this fact, I was surprised that some of the artists did such a poor job in terms of self promotion-with long pauses, little explanation of content, and contradictory statements.
If I were to choose my favorite artist who presented that night, it would have been Andrea Ling. She presented a series of photos displaying her sculptures of body suits. Each series presented a separate story which she alluded to, but rather concentrated on production process than content. Her designs presented responsive extensions of the body, combining high-tech and low-tech materials and structures. For one of her dresses she stressed the use of industrial silk—the finished result appeared to be a dress of shingles- this incorporated artistic structure with high fashion. Her work was aesthetically pleasing, but the downside was her presentation and explanation, which added nothing to her work.
The biggest wah-wah of the night was the ‘musical performance.’ I was pretty psyched when crazy people dressed in animal costumes popped out from behind the screen, but not so enthused when all they did was bounce around and throw their empty pamphlets at us. Honestly, I did not even know what they were promoting. Oh well, thumbs up to wine and beer- and I can’t even remember if that was decent.

Problematic Propaganda and Fretting for the Future...

I made my way last Friday (9/March/2007) down the twists and turns of Huashan Lu towards the Shanghai Propaganda Poster Art Center.

And I have wisdom to pass down to any unsuspecting pilgrims interested in walking down Huashan Lu: the road curves at one point even though there's no sign to warn you. So keep an eye out for the cross streets and, well, you won't wind up getting Shanghai'd (haha).

The museum entrance is is ominously placed in an inconspicuous looking apartment complex - the perfect setting for either a horror movie or soap opera. After some gesturing the guard showed me THE WAY...which was on a business card/map. The actual museum is in a basement complex - again the perfect setting for a horror movie. But aside from some very interesting propaganda posters, you need have no fear.

Though I could have sworn I saw one of the Mao poster figures blink at me.

Anyway, I chose two particular pieces to review/critique because I felt they could be connected by virtue of both being visions into China's future. It is obvious that the intended vision to be disseminated among the people changes over time and as I'll explain.



Ok so I would give the Chinese name for this first poster but I'm slightly embarrassed to admit that I don't know all the characters. Sorry folks. I can tell you the English name though: "Hail for Over-fulfilling Steel Production of 10.7 Million Tons". This was published in 1958 by an anonymous artist. The version you're looking at now was cropped by yours truly but if you feel so inclined you can find the original image here.

My first impression of it was striking: the dark colors of the factories in the lower background are contrasted by the illumination from what appear to be crowds of people and fireworks. Though if you look carefully, you will notice smokestacks all with fires ablaze, a telltale sign of continuous work and continuous progress. The question I would raise to the viewer is to imagine exactly what kind of progress is taking place. The China depicted in the picture is undoubtedly industrialized, but at the price of mechanization and a sort of sterility - apart from the working masses 'celebrating' their work there is no sign of life. And surely no sign of individuality which reinforces the mechanization that has undergone the workforce, ironically one of the problems of industrialization that communism in a pure form is supposed to address. If this is the intended future of China then it surely comes at a high price of the sacrifice of the individual. It is minor and probably in consequential in light of cultural differences, but notice that there are no stars to wish on and no faces in the crowd. I would say this detail alone is the icing on the cake as far as sacrifice of the individual for the sake of the state is concerned.



I actually know all the characters for this next image so you're in luck. Or maybe not if you don't care for Chinese. It is called "中华人民共和国千岁"(zhong1 hua2 ren2 min2 gong1 he2 guo2 qian1 sui4) or in English "Long Live the Chinese Republic". Again I have cropped the version you're seeing but you can find the original here.

This poster was made in 1979 and again presents a future vision of China, but one that is arguably both more confident and more positive overall. If you look carefully you will notice that we have yet another industrialized future (and this is an amusing 70s rendition in which I can't help but feel that all the technology depicted looks somewhat outdated nowadays - the helicopter is hilarious). Yet this future is much more service oriented with all the forms of transportation and seemingly more accessible to the people. You can see suggested Chinese superiority in terms of trains, cars, boats, airplanes, satellites, and even spacecraft. This last spacecraft is especially interesting as it suggests the inevitability of the expansion and success of the Chinese nation beyond its borders, carrying the country and its ideals into a new beyond. In the center lower foreground there is a tractor as if to remind the viewer where the People's Republic has come from and how the long history of China is inevitably interconnected with its presumably rich future. The sky is literally not even the limit as these seemingly highly industrialized ideals are starting to reach much beyond the sky. The city is again sterile in comparison to the previous picture, but not in such a bleak fashion. And it is surprisingly clean looking as compared to the previous picture. I would argue that the city is void of people because it has developed exponentially beyond the real life scenario where people must walk on the street - people are using highly developed transportation.

Overall I very much enjoyed my visit to the propaganda museum and would highly recommend it to anyone. This is a rare chance for both Chinese and Foreigners to see important contemporary history artifacts concerning the development of Chinese culture. The two pictures I mentioned especially strike a chord for me as I watch Shanghai be developed. Are we finally getting a glimpse into unfulfilled past Chinese dreams? If you take a look at the skyline on the Bund, it doesn't seem so far away from the second picture. The question I would again raise is not whether this is development is going to happen because it undoubtedly already is and will continue to do so - but rather, what kind of future will Shanghai and the rest of China ultimately have? Personally, I feel like Shanghai is destined for the second picture right now...and we'll have to wait and see as far as the rest of China is concerned!

I welcome any other analysis from anyone. Feel free to agree or disagree and write a comment ;]

THE POSTMODERN LIFE OF MY AUNT (Yima de Houxiandai Shenghuo)

The Shanghai International Film Club
Chinese films with English subtitles
______________________________

_________________

THE POSTMODERN LIFE OF MY AUNT (Yima de Houxiandai Shenghuo)
directed by Ann Hui
________________________________________________

Friday, 16 March 2007, 8:00 pm
Kodak Super Cinema World (details below)
70 RMB
No RSVP necessary - just come and enjoy!
________________________________________________

[Excerpted from the catalogue of the Toronto International Film Festival
2006.]

In “The Postmodern Life of My Aunt,” renowned director Ann Hui blends
her humanist cinema with the spirit of Chinese opera. She has created
both a humorous look at China today and a new genre of filmmaking: the
post-Cultural Revolution satirical melodrama. Cool and articulate, the
film has a generous heart, a sensitive soul and a clever mind.

Featuring a first-class cast of China's great actors - Siqin Gaowa, Chow
Yun-fat, Vicky Zhao Wei and legendary Lisa Lu – “The Postmodern Life of
My Aunt” tells the story of old-fashioned Ye Rutang (Gaowa), a single
woman in her sixties who struggles to maintain a dignified life amid the
dangers of Shanghai, a city that seems to have become the receptacle for
all kinds of con men. The first to pull a scam on Ye is her
twelve-year-old nephew, Kuan-kuan (Guan Wenshuo). He moves to her
old-fashioned apartment after breaking a leg in an accident, but when he
can't bear her stinginess, he runs away and pretends to have been
kidnapped in order to get the ransom money. Then comes Pan Zhichang
(Chow), an amateur opera singer, who tricks Ye into a relationship and
steals most of her savings with a complicated swindle involving
speculation in the price of cemetery plots.

Focusing the film on the experience of women in her home country and
around the world, Hui sketches a fine portrait of changing values. She
situates her story in a precise cultural moment - a time where the past
seems to carry meaning only in the stubborn memories of individuals.
This charming social tale takes an original approach to issues including
the atrophy of mores in a society that is no longer egalitarian; its
freshness rests in its ironic yet compassionate look at its curious
protagonists.

Beautifully penned by Li Qiang, one of China's greatest scriptwriting
talents, “The Postmodern Life of My Aunt” is endowed with an engaging
refinement. Its bold commentary on contemporary China is as sharp as a
razor blade.


Please join us!
_____________________________________________________________

Kodak Super Cinema World
Metro City, 5th Floor (tell the taxi driver "Mei Luo Cheng")
1111 Zhao Jia Bang Lu (in Xu Jia Hui, across from the Gateway
Shopping Center)
For additional information, call Connie Gao at 1370-191-5733.
______________________________________________________________

Could not make it to Gore Vidal?

Here is the link to a recording of the session:
http://odeo.com/audio/9987453/view

Sonic Youth to play China

Sonic Youth to play China
Band play their first ever shows there
02.Mar.07 7:03pm

Sonic Youth are finally set to play their first shows in mainland China
during an upcoming tour of the Far East.

Aside from taking in Japan, the art-rock quartet also have dates
planned for Shanghai and Beijing subject to the Ministry Of Culture in
the People's Republic of China granting their approval.

Speaking to NME.COM, singer/guitarist Thurston Moore revealed his
excitement at this jaunt.

He said: "Usually these kind of things are pretty underground but it
seems like we're playing in real theatres so there must be enough
people out there who are into us to make it worthwhile. I'm planning to
wear my promotional T-shirt of the film 'Shanghai Surprise' with Sean
Penn and Madonna in it- it's one of the worst films ever made!"

Moore also admitted that that he wasn't entirely sure what the audience
reaction would be judging by previous experiences.

He added: "We played the USSR in the late 80s and everybody expected
this rock band from America but the way we were playing, I think a lot
of people thought we were getting it wrong! They were like, 'What's
that? That's not rock music. That's some other kind of fucked up shit'.
Maybe it'll be a similar thing."

The full far-east tour is:

Osaka, Japan, Namba Hatch (April 17)
Nagoya, Japan, Diamond Hall (18)
Tokyo, Japan, Studio Coast (20- all Japan dates with The Boredoms)
Beijing, China, The Star Live (23)
Shanghai, China, Shanghai Concert Hall (24)

The band then return to the US to play the first day of Coachella on
April 27.

Yang Fudong: No Snow on the Broken Bridge(ARTFORUM International, Best of 2006 Film)ShanghART Gallery H-Space

Yang Fudong: No Snow on the Broken Bridge(ARTFORUM International, Best
of 2006 Film)ShanghART Gallery H-Space
March 24 - April 30, 2007

Yang Fudong's film and video work is about the human condition. He
mostly portrays his own generation of individuals in their late 20's
and early 30's, young people who seem confused and appear to hover
between the past and present. Yang Fudong's work epitomizes how the
recent and rapid modernization of China has overthrown traditional
values and culture. He skillfully balances this dichotomy to create
works endowed with classic beauty and timelessness. His works
investigate the structure and formation of identity through myth,
personal memory and lived experience. Each of his films is a dramatic
existential experience and a challenge to take on. His work is
open-ended and inconclusive, therefore open to individual
interpretation. Yang Fudong seeks through multiple vignettes to offer
the poetics of place and existence: Whatever occurs, Yang Fudong's film
work and photography indicate that something remains untouched and
unmoved, and perhaps all the more valuable for that reason.

"Howering between classical Chinese brush-and-ink painting and shanghai
cinema of the 20s, fudong's enveloping eight-screen landscape No Snow
on the Broken Bridge populated by angst-ridden youth, springs eternal."

Yang Fudong was born in 1971 in Beijing. He trained as a painter in
China Academy of Fine Arts in Hangzhou. Starting in the late 1990's
Yang Fudong embarked on a career in the mediums of film and video. He
is among the most successful and influential young Chinese artists
today. Yang Fudong participated in the 50th Venice Biennale (2003),
First Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art (2005), 1st International
Sharjah Biennale (2005), 1st Prague Biennale (2003) and 5th Shanghai
Biennale (2004), The 5th AsiaPacific Triennial of Contmeporary Art
(2006). He has had solo-shows at most acclaimed institutions such as
Kunsthalle Wien (2005), Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam, 2005), Castello di
Rivoli (Torino, 2005), The Moore Space (Miami, 2003), and ARC/Musee
d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris (2003).
2007-03-13 12:51

Let 10,000 Young Artists Bloom, Saatchi

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/11/magazine/11wwlnQ4.t.html?_r=1&ref=magazine&oref=slogin

Among the young artists whose work can be seen on Charles Saatchi's new
Chinese Web site are two who posted self-portraits: Huiyuan Sun, who
posted a series of photographs called "A Little Matter and My Face,"
above.

Stephanie Hueon Tung describes herself as a "fan of adrenaline and
adventure" on the Saatchi site, on which she has posted her "Light
Writing No. 1" and five other images.

PERUSING the student art on his Web site recently, as he does somewhat
obsessively throughout the day, the British collector Charles Saatchi
happened upon an entry from a painter named Liu Yang. This artist had
posted images of seven of his works, including a painting of a factory
set against a haunting gray background and a work on paper depicting a
woman's elongated torso.

But unlike European, American or Australian users of the site, who use
their Web pages there to tell the world everything about themselves —
their favorite artists, what movies and books inspired them, their
convictions about art or politics — Mr. Liu, a student at the Sichuan
Fine Arts Institute, simply wrote: "I can't speak a lot English. Sorry.
But love. ..." His message trailed off in a few lines of Chinese that
read in part: "I admit that my knowledge of art is limited at present.
However, I am sure I can learn quite a bit from your Web site."

Soon Mr. Saatchi began to notice that Mr. Liu was not alone. Every day
more art students from China were posting their work at Stuart (short
for Student Art), a popular nook of Mr. Saatchi's recently reinvented
Web site, saatchi-gallery.co.uk).

Known a decade ago for spotting talent and turning his discoveries into
superstars, as he did with so-called Young British Artists like Damien
Hirst and Rachel Whiteread, Mr. Saatchi is fixated these days on
Chinese artists, the hottest sector of the global market. And when he
saw these shyly tentative Web postings, something clicked.

"There are so many artists in China who want their work to be seen," he
said in a recent interview at his London home, pausing every now and
then to scan the large computer screen on his desk. "These students,
like all the others, want to know what's going on around the world."

So in January he decided to create a Chinese version of his Web site to
cater to that audience. Working in a warren of makeshift offices in the
basement of his Eaton Square home, 16 experts now oversee both the
popular Saatchi Gallery site, which is getting more than six million
hits a day, and a site in Mandarin, accessible from the home page, that
went online two weeks ago.

"Our goal is to break down language and cultural barriers," said Neeraj
Rattu, who is leading the site's technology team. Having compiled a
considerable amount of data, the team estimates that 20 to 30 art
schools operate in China; that about 10,000 students will graduate from
such schools this year; and that some 14,000 artists in China are
represented by galleries.

"That leaves roughly 10,000 unrepresented artists," said Kieran McCann,
who is in charge of the site's content and creative development.

About 300 art galleries operate in Beijing and about 300 in Shanghai: a
relatively small number, Mr. Saatchi said, considering the surge in
interest in Chinese work. China also has 100 to 200 auction houses,
many of which sell contemporary works.

Like Stuart, the Chinese site is designed to be as navigable as
possible, so that posting work will be as easy as opening an e-mail
account. So far 23 Chinese students have posted work on the site.

Each has a distinct personality. Kang Can, a serious-looking young man
photographed in sunglasses, writes, in perfect English, that he was
born in 1982 in Chongqing and graduated from the Sichuan Fine Art
Institute, and that he has already shown his work at Art Basel Miami.
Among the 15 images he has posted are a series of paintings in which a
sleeping infant is variously depicted in a chewing-gum wrapper, on top
of a gun, on the rim of a KFC plastic cup and in other poses.

"Babies as a symbol of human purity came to this world simple and
unadulterated," Mr. Kang writes.

Some of the pages are more cosmopolitan than others. Stephanie Hueon
Tung, a student at Peking University, writes that she recently
graduated from Harvard. "Now living and working in the wonderful city
of Beijing," her posting says. "Fan of adrenaline and adventure. Olé!"

Ms. Tung shows six images from her "light writing" series, in which she
scrawled in light on photographs ranging from a still life of a park
bench to an image of a closed-up shop that she embellished with a
heart-shaped graffito. Another student, Huiyuan Sun, has posted a work
called "A Little Matter and My Face," a series of 10 photographic
self-portraits in which he depicts himself in many guises.

In a few weeks the Saatchi team hopes the new site will be as
interactive as the English-language one, with a chat room in Mandarin
and a forum encouraging artists to debate current issues. The team's
eventual goal is to make its chat rooms seamlessly international, so
that students from all over the world can talk to one another in many
languages.

As it did for Stuart, the Saatchi team is reaching out to art schools
in China to let them know that their students can post pages at the
site. "It's all been word of mouth," Mr. Rattu said.

One looming concern is potential censorship by the Chinese government.
In recent months China has aggressively brokered controversial accords
with Google and Yahoo to filter the search-engine services they offer
in China and blocked access to some material offered by the Chinese
version of the online encyclopedia Wikipedia.

Mr. Saatchi's team knows it may encounter problems if work posted on
the site is overtly political or directly critical of the Chinese
leadership. Its pioneering effort is likely to be closely monitored by
Western dealers and auction houses in the months ahead.

Pressed on that possibility Annabel Fallon, a spokeswoman for the
Saatchi Gallery, played down the potential for conflict. "After
discussions with the Chinese Embassy here we don't believe censorship
will be too much of a problem," she said in a written statement.
"According to the dealers and artists in China we are in contact with,
government interference in the arts seems to be at a very low level in
the last 10 years."

She added, "We don't foresee our site becoming a platform for
anti-government propaganda, but we do of course aim to be respectful to
the wishes of our host nation if our site starts being abused."

In remaking his Web site nine months ago to appeal to artists and
students and to be more interactive, Mr. Saatchi says, he resolved to
buy nothing posted there for the site's first year. Nonetheless he has
already bought works elsewhere by popular Chinese artists like Wang
Guangyi, Yue Minjun and Zhang Xiaogang. And when his new gallery, a
50,000-square-foot space on Kings Road in the Chelsea section of
London, opens in the fall, its first show will be devoted to
contemporary Chinese artists.

In the meantime he and his Internet team spend their days pondering
ways of attracting more artists to the site. In addition to Stuart, for
art students, and Your Gallery, a separate area where artists of all
ages can post their work and sell it directly without relying on a
dealer or other middleman, the site offers links to museums around the
world and a magazine with art world news and feature articles.

It is also sponsoring a six-month competition called Showdown, the art
Web equivalent of "Pop Idol" in Britain or "American Idol" in the
United States. Artists registered at the site can enter works on which
the Internet public will vote; the winner will get £1,000 (about
$1,930) and a chance to show his or her work at the Saatchi Gallery
when it opens. The runner-up will get £750, or about $1,450.

After posting its first call for submissions last week, the site
reported nine million hits over a 24-hour period. The team will soon
post the contest instructions in Mandarin so that Chinese artists can
compete.

But Mr. Saatchi says he won't stop with China. Over the next six months
his team hopes to draw in artists from India, Russia, Spain and South
America.

"My aim," Mr. Saatchi said, " is to do everything I can to maximize the
site's exposure."

4/1 Dingma Contest with Yuyintang @ 4Live

http://www.rockself.com/news/list.asp?id=1831

"顶马永远OK"超级马桶大奖赛



由育音堂企划，4LIVE酒吧协办的"顶马永远OK"超级马桶大奖赛，将于2007年4月1日（周日）在上海4LIVE酒吧正式举行！本次大赛参赛选手面向所有顶楼的马戏团歌迷（"马桶"），是倡导顶马歌迷自信、健康、积极的生活态度为目的的一次综合大赛。选手将通过网络和短信报名、初选等环节，产生12名参赛"马桶"，这12名参赛"马桶"将在决赛中一展风采，最终评选出"超级马桶"一名，成为2007年度"猛妞爽爽乳罩"形象代言人。


* 超级马桶报名方法 *

1. 希望选手可通过发送短信"我有的是钞票"进行报名，我们的工作人员将会在第一时间与您取得联系，发送方式如下：
联通用户发送到 13501932550
移动用户发送到 13501932550
小灵通用户还是发送到 13501932550
2. 选手可以通过发送邮件到 jackoe@yuyintang.com 进行报名。
3. 选手可以通过其他一切能联系育音堂的方式进行报名。

* 参赛须知 *

1. 本次比赛不收取任何报名费，但食宿路自理，主办方也不支付任何演出劳务费用。
2. 比赛中应保持想唱就唱，唱得漂亮的作风，如演出作品明显违反相关法律法规，主办方有权保留使用终止表演的权力。


* 超级马桶赛程安排 *

3月1日―3月15日 报名
3月18日左右 初选，选定12位参赛选手
4月1日晚 20:00 总决赛




* 超级马桶竞技方式 *


1. 本次比赛的所有参赛作品都应翻唱自顶马所有专辑曲目
2. 本次比赛参赛选手不限制个人或者组合，选手可以选择以下方式参赛：
(1) 清唱
(2) 由顶楼的马戏团提供伴奏CD
(3) 自组乐队参加演出
（4）由顶楼的马戏团提供现场伴奏（初选通过后，将与顶马排练2次）




* 超级马桶比赛流程 *

4月1日 20:00 比赛开始
1."12进4": 12位参赛选手分成4组，每位选手按照事先抽签选中的组别次序，各翻唱1首事先选定的顶马新专辑《蒂米重访零陵路93号》曲目，由"嘉宾评委团"当场从4组中各选出1名优胜者，进入4强。


2."4进2": 4位优胜选手各再翻唱一首顶马新专辑歌曲，曲目可与之前其他选手参赛曲目重复，但必须与自己首轮演唱曲目不同，由顶楼的马戏团新老成员组成的"顶马评委团"，从4名选手中评选出2名优胜者进入"1、2名PK"。


3. "3、4名PK": 第2轮"4进2"环节中淘汰的2位选手进行PK赛。PK时，每人发表讲话，并清唱任意自选歌曲的片断进行才艺表演，随后由首轮 "12进4"环节中被淘汰的8位选手，以及现场任意挑选的5名观众，组成"13点大众评委团"，各持一条大赛组委会提供一次性短裤进行"短裤投票" ，得"裤票"低的一位将被淘汰出前三甲


4. "1、2名PK": 由在场所有观众"短裤投票"，将自用、自备、自购的短裤为选票，在规定时间内抛向自己所喜爱的第2轮"4进2"中优胜的2位选手，进行全场大PK，大赛组委会当场负责清点各人收获的"裤票"数量，得"裤票"多的选手则为超级马桶大奖赛冠军，并即刻成为2007年度"猛妞爽爽乳罩"形象代言人。得"裤票"少的选手则为亚军 （届时大赛组委会将于现场平价供应大量一次性纸内裤）


5. 颁奖典礼: 颁发由顶楼的马戏团全体成员签名的3座神秘奖杯给前三甲获胜选手，其余9位参赛选手均将获得由顶楼的马戏团全体成员签名的9座神秘慰问奖杯


* 超级马桶特邀主持、嘉宾评委 *

大赛特邀主持：
王涵 陆湘

大赛嘉宾评委会由4位华语乐坛资深乐评人组成：
孙孟晋 杨波 张晓舟 许磊（twinbed）


* 超级马桶主办方权益 *

本次大赛主办对于本次活动享有以下权益：
1、对参赛选手的表演进行录音录像；并复制、发行、销售录有参赛选手表演的录音录像制品；
2、以宣传大赛为目的合理使用参赛选手的肖像和姓名


* 章程的修改与解释 *

本次大赛章程的修改权、解释权归大赛组委会。

企划：育音堂
赞助：猛妞爽爽乳罩
主办：育音堂 4LIVE酒吧
场地：4LIVE酒吧
地址：上海市建国中路8号(靠近思南路)
时间：2007年4月1日 20:00
门票：30元（含一次性纸内裤1条）

卡拉OK MP3如下，请大家好好练习

01.天堂，我们来啦！
02.陈波切
03.攻占上海马戏城
04.朋克都是娘娘腔
05.娇娇
06.我有的是钞票
07.四只女人(平静的生活)
08.Punkblues
09.we don't want you understand us
10.Bite it you scum
11.Mammamia
12.卡拉永远OK
13.公猩猩与母记者
14.GG ALLIN
15.撒旦啊，撒旦
16.GG主义好
17.菲律宾
18.我们很愤怒
19.超级畜生

http://www.rockself.com/dm/01.mp3
http://www.rockself.com/dm/02.mp3
http://www.rockself.com/dm/03.mp3
http://www.rockself.com/dm/04.mp3
http://www.rockself.com/dm/05.mp3
http://www.rockself.com/dm/06.mp3
http://www.rockself.com/dm/07.mp3
http://www.rockself.com/dm/08.mp3
http://www.rockself.com/dm/09.mp3
http://www.rockself.com/dm/10.mp3
http://www.rockself.com/dm/11.mp3
http://www.rockself.com/dm/12.mp3
http://www.rockself.com/dm/13.mp3
http://www.rockself.com/dm/14.mp3
http://www.rockself.com/dm/15.mp3
http://www.rockself.com/dm/16.mp3
http://www.rockself.com/dm/17.mp3
http://www.rockself.com/dm/18.mp3
http://www.rockself.com/dm/19.mp3