Beyond the Future: Papers from the Third Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art

The Paris-based Ch inese artist Huang Yong Ping, selected as one of the artists representing France in the French Pavilion of the last Venice Biennale of this millenn i um, understands such a new commitment of art perfectly and takes up the challenge. In his project One Man, Nine Animals, he deconstructs the h ighly symbolic French Pavil ion, wh ich has been ideologically related to a certain Euro-centricism and nationalism, by introducing an 'other' system of symbolism - world vision and time, referring to Chinese mythology and meta­ scientific trad ition . N ine fantastic creatures predicting contrad ictorily precarious futures of the world , topping n ine columns breaking through the building from ground to sky become an alternatively dominating force in the re-negotiation and re-mapping of the future borders between the West and 'non-West' as well as the re-de-construction of world order. In the meantime, a south-pointing chariot with a bronze figure on the top, originally an ancient Chinese scientific invention, is installed in front of the troop of fantastic animals. Situated at the very centre of the radiation of the powerful but conflicting pred ictions of the future embodied by the nine different fantastic beasts, it intensifies the inevitable destiny of the coming millennium : nothing will be as certain as we have imagined in the last m illennium. What will be certain is that the world will be decentral ised into a new, mu lti-centred constellation in wh ich d ifferences, paradoxes, conflicts, etc. will be a normality of life while dialogues, translations and negotiations between different cultures, peoples and regions in the world are a constant and necessary part of existence. No doubt art, facing the coming millennium of co-existence of different culture and time spaces and pushed by the expansion and acceleration of the 'globalising modernity' , has to carry out profound changes in its own heart, its own discourses . How to survive such a time of fundamental sh ift in the world is the question. Art has to seek new ways of existence in the fast changing reality, driven by new technology and new economic, political and cultural order. It has to obtain new forms, new languages and new methods to generate meanings. Possibilities are infin ite. What is certain is that it has to emphasise multi-orientations, fluidity, flexibility, uncertainty, 'immateriality' and cu ltural hybrid ity. It may reflect the final collapse of the industrial consumerist way of l ife and values and prefigure the innovative but unpredictable and surprising possibilities of production and communication of humans in the 'post-industrial' era looming over us. Remember a fantastic moment in contemporary art creation in the last years of this millennium : the Afro-American artist David Hammons sold snowballs at different prices according to their size in New York. (Bliz-aard Ball Sale, Cooper Square, New York 1 983). Ionising on the fact that the Afro-American population has been inescapably absorbed by the capitalist consumerist economy and its social system , with a powerful but deliberative, sophisticated and humorous poetry Hammons also reveals the very fate of the hegemony of such a system : it will be vaporised into nothingness, l ike the snowballs, be they large, medium or small, expensive or cheap. It is in th is 'noth ing-ising' process that moments of l iberation of the oppressed appear. Future is uncertain l ike the evaporating snow; what is certain is that an unknown but emancipating world will come over the horizon . The Network of Global Cities Emphasising multi-orientation, fluidity and constant change as the essence of contemporary art and culture is the most efficient way to grasp the sh ifting real ity of today's world. It reveals the most vital, dynamic, creative, humane and hence the most promising aspect in our vision of the contemporary world at the turn of the millennium . Such a vision p rovides us with unprecedented imagination and creativity. Certainly, a glance at the recent h istory of contemporary a rt and culture is helpfu l . It's not strange that a good number of artists are becoming interested again in 'tradition' from Situationists and Fluxus to performance art in the 1 960s and 1 970s. Immaterial ity, temporality, flu idity, process, improvisation and connectivity are once again taken up by a new generation of creators as catchwords. The revisit of the Situation ists is particularly enlightening since its utopian project of redefin ing the u rban space as the main playground for human creativity and communication in the age of information can offer a direct and relevant reference for many of those who are looking to re-engage art in public life today. Contemporary art is increasingly brought to confront and intervene into real l ife, going beyond its established boundaries of 'art'. The city, the urban space, naturally becomes the focus of 1 00