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

1 In a question from the floor at the end of this session Sally Butler, University of Queensland asked Cai Guo Qiang why he wanted to represent the 'big bang', particularly as it's a subject that hasn't traditionally preoccupied western artists. Did he have a specific cultural metaphor in mind? The artist responded : In fact although the work was designed when I was in Japan, it was created and carried out in Germany. I created an island by having a trench dug around a tract of land. In that trench were placed explosives and I sat in the m iddle of the island . When the explosives went off and contracted towards the centre of the island I was sitting there and a record ing was made of my heartbeat as the pressure of the explosion moved towards me. It was an attempt to investigate, inspired much by my time in Japan , the nature between the ind ividual and nature and their mutual interfacing and reliance, although done in a western context. I was using the theme of the big bang to make it relevant to the place where I was doing it which was in Germany. The actual name of the work was Fetus Movement II. 79