Digital and postdigital 3D animation in the contemporary Chinese art scene: Miao Xiaochun and Lu Yang

초록

This article discusses digital three-dimensional animations by Miao Xiaochun and Lu Yang. The two artists' works are commonly based on the expressive possibilities of digital software and virtual space, such as non-naturalistic rendering of objects, vertical and multiple perspectives distinct from the linear perspective of traditional painting and photography, and the virtual camera's freedom of omnidirectional and gravitation-free movements. While this article provides in-depth analyses of the works in terms of how these expressive possibilities allow Miao and Lu to create the spatially and temporally complex worlds in which past, present and future dynamically coexist and interact with one another, I also argue that both artists are different in their technical and conceptual approaches to digital technology and its impact on reality and subjectivity. To demonstrate these differences, I draw on the ideas of 'digital' and 'postdigital' art: whereas digital art is marked by the ambivalent tendency to exploit the new properties of the digital while also seeking the ways of translating the forms and techniques of traditional arts in the tools and space of the computer, postdigital art means a variety of artistic responses to the situation that the internet and digital technologies are no longer perceived as new but as fundamentally restructuring our subjectivity and world.