Home Issues Past Issues MCS 2016 Issue 1 SCREENS AS FACES AND FAÇADES: OLD ORDER AND NEW MEDIA - SCREENS ON TIANANMEN SQUARE IN BEIJING
SCREENS AS FACES AND FAÇADES:
OLD ORDER AND NEW MEDIA
- SCREENS ON TIANANMEN SQUARE IN BEIJING
Abstract: High-tech, site-specific, screens on Tiananmen Square seemed to have been built as technologically ‘up-to-date’ visual proof for the ongoing modernization process of Chinese society. Tiananmen Tower opposite the screens holds the iconic Mao portrait on its façade. Traditional screen paintings were placed inside as well as outside to define space, provide intimacy and place. Following Wu Hung, a screen has a 'face' and a 'back'. I will analyze the significance of these screens: as a remediation (Bolter and Grusin) of Chinese traditional screens and as 'furniture' for nation building. There is a pair of hi-tech screens on Tiananmen square which was installed in 2009 at the occasion of the People's Republic 60th anniversary. I visited the screen-equipped square in 2012 and 2013.
About the Author: Vera Tollmann (1976) is a cultural scientist and freelance writer based in Berlin. In 2013 she co-curated the 9th edition of Video Vortex conference at the Centre for Digital Cultures of Leuphana University Luneburg and the web video series The Future of Cinema (with Shama Khanna) for Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen. Her programme Case Study China was exhibited at House of World Cultures, Berlin, in 2009 and later at 4D in 2011. Her small publication, China: Der deutschen Presse Marchenland 2011) is a hommage to Gunter Amendt and his pamphlet of the same title and a text montage of newspaper articles about Ai Weiwei's arrest and release. Most recently Vera gave a presentation on hybrid video on the Chinese internet at Radical Media Conference organised by MaMa in Zagreb. Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.