Present Encounters : Papers from the conference of the Second Asia-Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, Brisbane, 1996

internationally. Throughout this piece they explore how in their work, art can be used to make this advertisement more profound and more timely. I n the China of rapid commercia lisation and i ndexations this visualisation of 'i nternational red humour' is necessary. Improvised consumer psychology led to Lin Yilin (Canton) using money as the material of h is work The consequence of 1000 yuan. Bricks and money are both the materials of social structure. The sensitivity and cultural significance of the materials is enhanced due to the artificial participation of the artist and the spectators. I n a similar way, the sensitivity of social psychology and the living space is enhanced in Motivator (1 996) , another work by Lin Yi l i n . Motivator was completed , significantly, i n the bustling city o f Hong Kong; it is a wall wh ich i s moved by people; through the motion and interference of people t he constructed wal l becomes a dangerous wal l . Just as he always treats 'these significant matters . . . i n t he new work their meaning is bei ng dissembled and obstructed'. I have consistently paid attention to cu ltu ral consumerism in my works. I'm concerned about the problems of imperialism oppressing third world countries, this oppression is now realised through the transformation of consumerism . I pay attention to specific consumption problems, and at the same time am also conce rned about cultural colonial tendencies, and about how to realise the position of 'second nature' in this culture. (Xu Tan , Canton) Xu Tan 's psychological state is depicted in h is works New Order (1 994) and New Thought (1 995) . These works also provide specific explanations for his constant emphasis that Chinese artists, 'should have the direct authority to speak on international questions'. Similarly, Wang Gongxin (resident in the United States) is i nterested in international questions, as shown in his works Brooklyn Sky (1 995) and Biao (1 995) . I n Chinese Biao means a person mounting a picture or clock on a wal l . These works reveal the satisfaction and confusion of cultural communication and cultural identity, as evident in the absurd sentence which is repeatedly broadcast in his work. 'Look at what, what is worth looking at, there a re a few clouds in the sky, what is there worth looking at . . . ' . I n a strict sense, the individual state o f mind i s a part o f the category o f t he social state of being; it is the main body of social ecology and independently draws out the broad significance of the social state of mind. The reason for drawing out the broad significance of the social state of bei ng is that contemporary artists are more and more concerned with the existence of this reality. Despite the undisciplined and innumerable changes of the social state of being, it is as if artists, in taking up an individual state of being , are becoming more and more perceptive to themselves and other livi ng things. For example, new humanity, l ife science , genetics, biological engineering, etc. are scientific technologies which are changi ng and developing with each passing day, the significance of human investigation of the species is emerg i ng daily. Consequently, artists' reasons for working are different from the attention they d i rect toward social ecology. Naturally, individual ecology and the social state of being are cultural questions. I n the different psychology presented in Chinese artists and their works, these cultural questions and the mutual coming together and dependent relationship of these cultu ral questions reflect the special cultural val ue of i ndividual ecology and social ecology. Wu Shanzhuan and l . S. Thorsdottir completed another work, Old Water (1 994) , achieving their artistic concept of Manifesto of the Power of Matter. In their view, the power of matter has a broader significance than the power of humans. The identity of matter is just an attitude of mind; as matter among all matter (you), in this you become an extra and thus find the power of matter . . . Any matter has power (plural) as effectively being outside the limits of the unfettered and as the existence of matter. (Chapter three, Manifesto of the Power of Matter). I n recent years, Wang Luyan (Beijing) and Wang Jian Wei (Beijing) have implemented their artistic concepts with experiments, their cu rrent art practice surrounds the process of the individual state of being entering the social state of being system. In these encounters, 'whether the embarrassment and forced results are acceptable by people is doubtfu l ' . (Wang 65