Media Art

New media art works by Chinese artists — ranging from video art, digital art and animation to flash art and sound art — have emerged in contemporary art exhibitions both at home and abroad. In China, a number of new media art exhibitions have followed the country's first video art show in 1996 in Hangzhou, capital of east China's Zhejiang Province where a leading institution in new media art — the China Academy of Fine Arts — is located. Around 1998, Chinese new media art experienced a major breakthrough when personal computers and DV cameras came into wide use and CD ROM and the Internet entered the daily lives of Chinese people. Following the example of the China Academy of Fine Arts in Hangzhou, the Beijing-based Central Academy of Fine Arts has recently opened a digital art studio to provide service and training for new media artists. Many other Chinese artists also are trying to use new media as a vehicle to express concern over serious issues. Another medium experimenting with new technology in China is cartoons. The 2002 "Zikai Cup" National Cartoon Exhibition — honoring a master of the Chinese cartoon, the late Feng Zikai (1898-1975) — was held in Beijing's Yanhuang Art Museum in September 2002, co-sponsored by China Daily, the Cartoon Art Commission of the Chinese Art Association, and the China Journalistic Caricature Society. During the exhibition, more than 40 cartoonists from across China participated in a three-day symposium to discuss how Chinese cartoons should face opportunities and challenges in an Internet era. The China News Cartoon website, the first of its kind in China, was launched in July to promote Chinese cartoons and cartoonists. Information about foreign cartoonists and trends are selected and translated into Chinese as well.