Logo Angela YT Chan
In Conversation: Changing Realities and Speculative Fictions in the work of Cao Fei - Writing Published with Science Fiction Writers Gu Shi and Regina Kanyu Wang for Serpentine Galleries London

In Conversation: Changing Realities and Speculative Fictions in the work of Cao Fei - Writing Published with Science Fiction Writers Gu Shi and Regina Kanyu Wang for Serpentine Galleries London

June 12, 2020
writing / publication collaboration science fiction
index

Commissioned as an accompanying text to Cao Fei’s exhibition Blueprints at Serpentine, I was invited to create a written response to the artist’s science fictional themes in her films. I extended this conversation to science fiction writers Gu Shi and Regina Kanyu Wang (also an SF editor), and together, we discussed the context of Chinese SF throughout history and today. We touched on Cao Fei’s films, Whose Utopia (2006), RMB City: A Second Life City Planning (2007), Asia One (2018), 1.1 (2018) and Nova (2019), to explore of the topics in Cao Fei’s works that resonate with the authors, such as rapid industrialisation, technology, labour, and the changing shapes of interpersonal relationships throughout society.

Read our piece here and Cao Fei’s exhibition Blueprints here

Image: via Serpentine, 2019 Cao Fei, Nova, 2019, Video, 109’. Courtesy the artist, Vitamin Creative Space and Sprüth Magers