Sticks In The Air: este modelo é divido em duas partes que se tornam baquetas virtuais que produzem sons de bateria.

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E com isso encerramos o nosso Especial China. Até mais.

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The proposal of the exhibition was a trip through the main cities of the Chinese coast: Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen. The curators’ research started in Shenzhen, the birth of the contemporary graphic design in China. Thirty years ago, the city was no more than a little fishing village, and now it stands out as an important economic center, with a population of over 10 million. Since the city was a center for the printing industry, young design students and professionals saw it as a potential market. With the freedom to create something completely different, without the political mannerism of the past, a new experimental language was born, and it was like nothing the country had ever seen. The new generations of designers are able to add even more global influences into their work, and combine that to the local culture in an amazing way. The new guidelines of this generation include collaboration with artists, technology, and an identification with the growing Chinese youth culture.

Shanghai is the most internationally recognized Chinese city since the XIX century. Known as “Paris of the East”, it was the main disseminating point for the “Modern China” — the first car engine, the first movie, and the first Qipao dress appeared there. With the economic rebirth back in 1992, the city began to grow even faster, and is not a powerful economic center, the nest of the emerging Chinese middle class. Despite of the criticism against the consumption lifestyle that has been growing in China, Shanghai has been a trendsetter in the desire market.

Beijing, the Chinese capital, has never lost its place as the nation’s political and cultural center. In order to host this year’s Olympics, the city went through a quick and expressive urban renovation in every aspect: cultural and sports infrastructure, real estate, commerce and sustainability. China is revamping its image for the world to see, and this has been attracting architects who are able to imagine the new, each with its vision about how the new China should look like.

We’ll be back on Monday for the last day of out China special. See you then.

Located in the city of Beijing, 798 used to be an industrial district of the Chinese government, back in the 1950s. In the 1990s, the area was abandoned, and it remained forgotten til its rebirth in the early years of this millenium. As it happened in SoHo back in the 1960, cheap rent and spacious lofts caught the eye of artists, who quickly occupied the area, turning it into an artistic community and attracting galleries, bookshops, cafes and restaurants. The whole district breathes art, with a landscape filled with sculptures, urban interventions, and an atmosphere of charm, as you can see in the images below.

The city of Chongqing, one of the most populous in China, has promoted a true celebration of street art, gathering over 300 people from the local community to turn an area of 40,000 square meters into the largest residential area in the world to be covered in graffiti. Students, artists, and workers worked hard for a whole year, and the result was the unique landscape you can see in the pictures below: an environment filled with creativity and inspiration, most definitely worth a visit for those who are travelling to the gigantic China.

We’ll be back tomorrow with some highlights from the world of Chinese design.

The Louis Vuitton brand, which has been endorsed by celebrities such as Keith Richards, Sofia Copolla, and Mikhail Gorbachev, has now teamed up with three Chinese actresses to show tourists around the streets of the cities chosen for the Louis Vuitton Soundwalk project: Gong Li in Beijing, Shu Qi in Hong Kong, and Joan Chen in Shanghai. Check out the demo videos below.

The mp3 tracks are available at the project’s website for US$18 a piece, and come with a map including the walk’s itinerary. All tourists have to do is plug in their headphones and let themselves be guided around the streets, listening to the narration and getting to know more about the local culture and history. The project’s next edition will explore European cities and the legendary New York City.

Tomorrow’s topic is urban art. See you then.

The Chinese aesthetical revolution inspired brands like Pirelli, who shot its traditional calendar in an eastern location for the first time ever, in Shanghai. In the cast were Chinese models Mo Wan Dan and Du Juan, who were photographed by the highly acclaimed Patrick Demarchelier.

Italian brand Fendi also took advantage of the exotic Chinese scenery to promote its first fashion show at the Great Wall of China. The event costed US$ 10 million and reinforced the brand’s success in a nation that has only recently opened up for the luxury market.

From China to the world, fashion designer Vivienne Tam is the most important name in disseminating the China Chic aesthetics. Tam participated in the NYFW, and her pieces are in museums all over the world. Another highlight is the mix of art and fashion of designer Ma-ke, with her brand Wu-Yong (which means “useless”), which premiered in Paris with a cross-over of installation and fashion show.

Tomorrow we’ll be back talking about an initiative by a luxury brand that explores sites and celebrities of China.

One of the main representatives of this movement is Cao Fei, a young multimedia artist that uses cosplauers in her videos, creating narratives that come close to video games, in a brilliant experimental aesthetical composition. Her pieces address the differences between virtual and real, creating a new and fantastic reality.

Yang Fudong explores issues about the human condition, creating myths and introducing autobiographical data into her videos. His pieces remain fully open for the viewer’s own interpretation, as he uses symbols from his youth to draw a conflict with the modernization of China, in a parallel of generations, cultures, and ages.

Perhaps the most important name in the new Chinese cinema, Wong Kar Wai, is comfortable both in the universe of art and in the world of advertisement. Internationally acclaimed for full-length features like  My Blueberry Nights and 2046, he has lent his camera talents to advertisement campaigns for companies such as Phillips and BMW. Building dreamlike worlds with his virtuosity in the use of light and color, Wong Kar Wai has a unique ability to create tension and tell stories through images packed with mysteries and symbols.

We’ll be back tomorrow to talk a little bit about how China has been influencing the West in behavior and fashion.

Multimedia artist Cai Guo-Qiang gained woldwide recognition for his large-scale installations and explosion projects that have roamed museums all over. Even MoMa has already hosted his unexpected his unexpected explosions. As has the olympics, since Guo-Qiang is head of the art direction and special effects for the opening and closing ceremonies in Beijing.

Art collective More Yum Cha approaches the cultural opening and the change it brings in several aspects of the new China. Mixing elements of traditional Chinese iconography and symbols of the Western consumption society, the artists criticize consumerism and the shallowness of corporate globalization.

The breathtaking performances and installations of Zhang Huan, on the other hand, generally take place in public spaces. His works are full of nudes and references to budhism, with highly impacting and sometimes shocking images that strenghten the critical and acid content in the artist’s universe.

We’ll be back on monday with some highlights that have been bringing a revolution into the language of video. See you then.

The new Chinese generation has taken a leap into the globalized world, making the web a powerful tool for expression and social networking. The www has grown something close to 300% in China, over the last 5 years, and the influence of the Chinese youth in the blogosphere has reached the astronomic figure of 34 million blogs. Manazines and websites turn to the youngsters for an answer about what is cool and innovative.

Entertainment, lifestyle, fashion, art, trends, as well as new cultural expressions, such as graffiti, hip-hop and street culture, are discussed and guided by Chinese youngsters. And this generations’s production encompasses several important topics in the national identity, such as the traditional aesthetics, which is constantly renewed and referenced in desin, art, and illustration, often as a way to criticize the past, through symbols like violence, eroticism, and evil.

Classic elements of Chinese culture from the 60 and 70s turn up in bags and totes, turning political symbols into a vintage aesthetics, strongly appreciated by young Chinese people.

Their creativity is also environmentally aware. Shopping bags become collectibles among the youth, and are appreciated both for their prints of vintage posters and for the eco-friendly appeal.

Exclusiveness is also increasingly valued, as handmade stuff and limited series become objects of desire for the young Chinese.

Exhibitions and shopping malls adjust to their clients’ taste, promoting interactive experiences. Participation in creating products and events makes it possible to show and create works at the spot. This is a growing trend in China.

Our all-eyes-on-China continues tomorrow, with some highlights from the world of Chinese contemporary art.

At the event, within so many possibilities, the visitor can make music by touching leaves of plants just like keys of a synthesizer. Two of the most popular works among the public are videogames in which the player interacts by moving his own body. It is filmed by a little camera and then projected together with the graphics.

On each of the festival’s editions, artists, theorists and researchers meet up in symposiums to discuss the present and the future of the digital electronic culture. This year, FILE’s highlight is the 4k cinema, which inspires the event’s name. During the first week, fourteen films, each 6 or 7 minutes long, shot with this technology were shown at SESI Popular Theatre. The resolution presented is absurd: 2,160 vertical pixels multiplied by 4,096 horizontal pixels, resulting in images of 8 million pixels per frame - a number 4 times bigger than the HD (high definition) and Blu-ray technologies and that surpasses 24 times the quality of the conventional TV set. Though its expensiveness and the fact that 4k can be found only in few labs today, it is promised to promote a revolution on cinema since it allows a deeper immersion of the public inside the movie, with a much more realistic and full of details experience.