The Seventh Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art

1 Homi Kharas, ‘Can the Asian middle class come of age?’, East Asia Forum , <http://www.eastasiaforum.org/2011/06/12/can-the-asian- middle-class-come-of-age>, viewed 30 June 2012. 2 The World in 2011: ICT Facts and Figures , International Telecommunications Union, Geneva, p.1. 3 Partha Chatterjee, The Nation and Its Fragments , Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1993. 4 Anthony M Townsend, ‘Network cities and the global structure of the Internet’, American Behavioral Scientist , vol.44, no.10, June 2001, p.1705. 5 Jens Damm, ‘The Internet and the fragmentation of Chinese society’, Critical Asian Studies , vol.39, no.2, 2007, p.283. 6 Evgeny Morozov, ‘The Internet: A room of our own?’ Dissent , vol.56, no.3, summer 2009, p.82. 7 Jeroen Van Laer and Peter Van Aelst, ‘Internet and social movement action repertoires’, Information, Communication and Society , vol.13, no.8, December 2010, pp.1146–71. 8 Baogang He and Mark Warren, ‘Authoritarian deliberation: The deliberative turn in Chinese political development’, Perspectives on Politics , vol.9, no.2, 2011, pp.269–89. 9 Randolph Kluver and Indrajit Banerjee, ‘Political culture, regulation, and democratisation: The Internet in nine Asian nations’, Information, Communication and Society , vol.8, no.1, March 2005, pp.30–46; Loong Wong, ‘The Internet and social change in Asia’, Peace Review , vol.13, no.3, September 2001, pp.381–87; David T Hill and Krishna Sen, ‘Netizens in combat: Conflict on the Internet in Indonesia’, Asian Studies Review , vol.26, no.2, June 2002, pp.165–87; Ya-Wen Lei, ‘The political consequences of the rise of the Internet: Political beliefs and practices of Chinese netizens’, Political Communication , vol. 28, no.3 2011, pp.291–322. 10 Damm, p.290. 11 Thomas Hylland Eriksen, ‘Nationalism and the Internet’, Nations and Nationalism , vol.13, no.1, January 2007, pp.1–17. country such as China, it is the wealthy, educated middle classes that have most to lose if the government and Communist Party lose control; and so have become broadly supportive of government measures to curb the disruptive effects of these new technologies. 5 In Thailand, middle-class internet users have become active supporters of the status quo through participating in crowd-sourced surveillance of dissidents using sites such as ProtectTheKing.net. 6 The internet and mobile phones have fractured political currents within societies, leading to many and diverse strands of public and private political discussions that are increasingly mutually isolated and incomprehensible. In this sense, these new forms of communication have not reshaped politics; rather they have engaged people with pre-existing political tendencies more dynamically, and reinforced those tendencies. 7 Democracy activists despair that the internet has allowed governments to co-opt the middle classes by feigning an openness to internet-based consultation. 8 In this way the internet and mobile phones play a stabilising force, enabling the state and the middle classes to co-produce narratives of legitimacy, development and order from day to day. IDENTITY Surveys of the internet and social media in Japan, China, Korea, Thailand, the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and India have shown that a majority of users shy away from politically engaged and politically oppositional topics towards conversations that either accept or bolster the existing order, or completely ignore it. 9 By contrast, the vast majority of users are much more interested in using the internet and social media for personal identity and personal development purposes. Jens Damm observes that ‘the Chinese internet is more a playground for leisure, socialising and commerce than a hotbed of political activism.’ 10 In many ways, the internet answers many of the identity questions posed by the onward rush of modernity in the first place. One of the most urgent is that of belonging, as development breaks up old networks of meaning and association. National and ethnic identities thrive in cyberspace, allowing people to transcend time and place to broaden and bolster their sense of identity and connectedness with others. 11 Nationalism flows strongly within countries also. Asia’s rising powers have an expanding sense of their prerogatives in the world around them, a process reinforced by proud and increasingly nationalistic citizens. A form of neo-jingoism has emerged, articulated through public anger when the country’s voice, rights or wishes are perceived to be frustrated by others. In Asia, urbanisation, the middle classes and the mobile internet will drive powerful and churning change through identities on many levels. New combinations, new reconciliations and emerging divisions will be communicated quickly and powerfully to the national level and beyond, playing a vital role in shaping and reshaping social and strategic relations. This transcentury will be no less transformative than those of the past. 65