The Transmedia and Transcultural Hyperrealism of Ai Weiwei’s Digital Communication
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Speakers: Daria Berg and Giorgio Strafella (University of St.Gallen, Switzerland)
Cutting across art, literature and media, this study investigates Ai Weiwei’s recent artworks and ‘communication activism,’ looking at Ai both as content producer and as journalistic subject matter. The transmedia production of this Chinese artist, writer and activist with a uniquely ‘global’ reach constitutes a portrayal of the social and political realities around the world, including China, New York and the Middle East. Said portrayal not only displays no concern with exoticism and beauty per se, but exhibits instead a focus on the secular, the contemporary and the social that allows us to describe it as ‘realism’ (Williams, 1977). Also on the basis of Ai Weiwei’s theoretical writings on art, one can argue that such realism stems from (1) a concern with clarity, (2) a long-standing reflection on the concepts of ‘real’ and ‘fake,’ and (3) what Williams described as ‘a conscious movement towards social extension’. Ai Weiwei designs his art and social media presence so that instances of oppression and injustice hit the audience with maximum brutality and effectiveness.