SHANGHAI SHANGHAI

of LIU Zhenchen

FRANCE, 2006, 00:11:00

Production : Studio National des Arts - Le Fresnoy
Genre : Video art
Keyword : Allegory, Experimental, Society, Town planning

Summary :
1976 : year of the death of Mao Tse Tung and his main minister, Zhu Enlai. End of the Cultural Revolution in China. I was born that year in Shanghai, in a family that was completely destroyed by the Revolution. As for myself, I did not experience that insane revolution, but a different one… The eighties : The opening up of China has brought about enormous changes after years of isolation, changes which the city of Shanghai represents best.

This ‘window of 21rst Century China’s openness’ seems to have taken as its slogan “ higher, faster, further” -- to the point of dizziness. A one hundred floor, 492 meter tall concrete and glass rocket is soon to become the highest building in the world. It will house the Shanghai World Financial Center.
I have been living in Europe for five years now, but each year I go back to Shanghai and cannot recognize it. It does not seem to want to have a history, all I see is a feverish rush toward modernity…

I have seen Shanghai change, and Shanghai changes still more… This city is producing a culture of speed, cost-effectiveness, technology, instantaneity, fragmentation, competition, ephemerality,…
This film presents two Shanghais : Shanghai as it is conceived, thought out, imagined in models and virtual rendering videos; Shanghai as it is experienced by the people who actually live in it.

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