On November 8, 2003 Chinese artist Shi Yong held the premiere performance of Super Angel (2003) at San Diego State University. The piece was completed during residency at the haudenschildGarage. Super Angel was produced in collaboration with Tina Yapelli of the University Art Gallery and the students of San Diego State University. He invited people to be part of the development of his website and performance by participating in a conversation with him through his interactive website.
Hou Hanru (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hou_Hanru) gave the keynote lecture, Chinese Artists (Digitally) Facing the Globalizing World, prior to the performance.
Shi Yong was an Artist-In-Residence from October 22 - November 12, 2003 at the haudenschildGarage and was invited as part of the exhibition Zooming into Focus: Contemporary Chinese Photography & Video from the Haudenschild Collection. He was responsible for designing the Zooming into Focus catalog and the installation design of Zooming into Focus at the National Art Museum of China, Beijing.
About Shi Yong http://www.shanghartgallery.com/galleryarchive/artists/name/shiyong
Recently, nearly in one year, the idea of my work has been mainly concerned with the "public image" which exists in the medium of space. Exactly, opposite to the western medium, the "Public Image" is ironical. It reflects another cultural reality in the dialogue and interchange between the western and the non-western: the so-called multiculturalism defined by the western culture seemingly tells you that the line between the ethnocentric culture and the marginal culture is being eliminated. At the same time, the name of "discrepancy" a new taxonomy of cultures is placing you cleverly in a special symbolic window display for the purpose of distinguishing. Then, you are forced to come back to the marginal position one more time. The difference is only that the previous line with the air of the colonialism is now replaced by that of the post colonialism. Therefore, in the cultural reality controlled factually by the western power, the so-called non-western character who is redifferentiated and redifined has to take the "Public Image" in line with the defined standard as an effective and safe extrance. In that case, you can keep a "legitimate" position in the stage of so-called ethnocentric culture. This is the reason why I take the "Public Image" as the subject of my works.
-Shi Yong
