Exhibition
Chinternet Ugly
8 Feb 2019 – 12 May 2019
Regular hours
- Friday
- 10:00 – 17:00
- Saturday
- 10:00 – 17:00
- Sunday
- 12:00 – 17:00
- Tuesday
- 10:00 – 17:00
- Wednesday
- 10:00 – 17:00
- Thursday
- 10:00 – 17:00
Cost of entry
Free
Address
- Market Buildings
- 13 Thomas Street
- Manchester
England - M4 1EU
- United Kingdom
Travel Information
- The nearest bus station is Shudehill Exchange, and Piccadilly Gardens is also a 5 minute walk away.
- The nearest tram station is Shudehill.
- Manchester Victoria is a 5 minute walk from the venue. Manchester Piccadilly is a 10 minute walk.
An important new group exhibition which navigates the messy vitality of China’s online realm – a space where artists can engage, play and debate – featuring works by six leading new media artists.
About
‘Chinternet Ugly’ navigates the messy vitality of China’s online realm, a space where artists can engage, play and debate.
This exhibition features works by six leading new media artists and includes new work by Miao Ying, co-commissioned by CFCCA and University of Salford Art Collection.
China is home to 802 million Internet users, 431 million micro-bloggers, 788 million Internet mobile phone users, and four of the top ten Internet companies in the world. This vast user base combined with a handful of ubiquitous online platforms and e-commerce giants including WeChat, Tencent and Alibaba results in cultural currents that flow at a blinding pace – spreading and evolving far more rapidly than on the ‘global’ web and creating a distinct internet culture – the ‘Chinternet’. Utilising this space as a site for cultural and political negotiation, critique and play, the artists presented in ‘Chinternet Ugly’ probe how the sheer volume of Internet users in China ensure that the country is effectively becoming its own online centre of gravity, one with the power to create its own sphere of influence over network norms.
Focusing on a younger generation of artists – the first to have grown up with mass digital technology – ‘Chinternet Ugly’ invites the viewer to explore the complex and contradictory nature of China’s hyper-regulated digital sphere from the perspective of some of its most dynamic and engaging artists. From Xu Wenkai (aaajiao) and Lin Ke’s manipulations of found digital materials and standard software programs; to the augmented reality of Lu Yang; the celebratory pop aesthetics of Ye Funa to the dark side of internet freedom in the works of Liu Xin, and the veneration of the ugly and artless evident in the works of Miao Ying.