Diversionist
2004 - Photography (Photography)
Cao Fei
Diversionist is part of the Cosplayers Series from 2004. In Cosplayers Cao Fei depicts the popularity among Asian youths of “cosplay” in which daily life is merged with images of video games and popular films. For many, this virtual reality is an outlet to “transcend” the paradox of a developing society in which the pleasures of consumption and depression of alienation go hand-in-hand. Cao Fei sensitively captures the new social consciousness and activism, beautifully translating them into photographic and video works.
Cao Fei is a celebrated multimedia artist known for works that focus on the interplay between real and fictional worlds. Working across photography, performance, video, and digital media, her practice vividly reflects the zeitgeist of the late twentieth century and the role that image production has played in shaping youth culture in a digital era. Influenced by an array of forms of global pop culture—from Cantonese Pop and Japanese anime to American hip-hop—a common thread in her practice is the merging of everyday life with new forms of technology as a means to unveil society’s unfulfilled desires. Her pivotal film Whose Utopia , for example, showcases assembly line workers in a factory in China as they act out their aspirations in a backdrop of industrial machinery. In another key body of work, RMB City, Fei created a virtual city through the platform Second Life —an online space that mimics ‘the real world’—as a vehicle to express ideas that relate to modernization, capitalism, and consumer culture. Through these constructed worlds, Fei presents a profound meditation on the boundaries between the real and the fantastic and the sense of alienation that drives new generations to increasingly experience the world behind the veneer of their Avatars. For Fei, the digital world is an expression of our human condition, and as such, an avenue to reflect on these emerging forms of social consciousness.
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