“Whatever You Want” is a Form of Context

By Curator GuZhenqing

“Whatever you want” is a declaration. A declaration is a statement of viewpoint. “Whatever you want” expresses an independent spirit and freedom of thought. It says that all things under the sun belong to me, and that I think therefore I am. For the artist, it is the self-recognition of the artist’s unique personality, and the self-formation of a unique formal language.

“Whatever you want” is a form of context, a context of the subjective conscious, a timely context that abandons all old ideologies. If a person sets his sights on the uniqueness of his value in the present, and on developing his own differences from others in the future, then he has creative potential, he has his own small universe that can explode at any time. An artist’s individual context is one of countless “Whatever you want” contexts. “Whatever you want” can be doing things my way; it can be self-growth and self-elevation. It can also be bold action and proactive innovation.

 “Whatever you want” is a reassessment of value, even a reshaping and magnification of value. In the context of globalization, it is the artist’s individual doubts and criticisms cast on modernity, consumer society and the various economic growth models, manifested as a reassessment of values aimed at the established social reality and its norms and standards. New media art has flourished with the rise of the internet and digital technology. What it catalyzes and releases are virtual experiences of groundbreaking imagination and values restoration. These designs and fabrications of future life, these proactive creations, ambitious theories and even ambitious failures of new media artists are doubtless marked by that experimental nature that is essential to knowledge production. These artist’s positive practices in reimagining the world inspire cautious theoretical analysis and practical confirmation, transcending the established social spectacle and visual modes of production to create a dynamic and diverse reshaping and magnification of value.

Art changes life, and innovation changes the world. Such a context, so inextricably linked to art, life and the real world, is becoming the form and content of new media art. The independent insight, curiosity and imagination of new media artists are constantly changing the frame of reference for society as a whole. They intervene in the scene of everyday life, creating perceptive individual methods of experience and concocting open group experiences and collective memories, “activating” the ever-changing new media context as a continuously evolving socio-cultural reality.

 “Whatever you want” is a form of context. In fact, “Whatever you want” can be a kind of form and content for new media art.

      Whatever you want. The possibilities are endless.