Cao Fei’s 曹斐 I, Mirror: Bodies in Surveillance Culture in Contemporary Chinese Expanded Media Art

Abstract

With the advancement of digital technologies, surveillance in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has evolved from state and corporate modes towards everyday domains. This integration occurs through the growing reliance of individuals on digital infrastructure in their ordinary interactions, which embodies the concept of ‘surveillance culture’. These novel surveillance methods and control mechanisms have given rise to new forms of institutional power imbalances This paper focuses on multimedia artist Cao Fei’s曹斐 (b. 1978) artwork i, mirror (2007) to explore the artistic strategies employed with updated media to reflect on the PRC’s developing surveillance culture critically. Through a thorough analysis of i.mirror, the research investigates how the artist represents the virtual body to complicate the notion of post-panoptical surveillance culture as a mechanism of control beyond the real realm. The paper examines how the body’s shifting identities, as both the object and the subject of the subtler surveillance collectively undertaken by the PRC’s authorities and civilians in their everyday lives, leads contemporary artists to explore the potential for new subjectivities in the new age of ‘digital China’. The overarching aim is to explore how contemporary Chinese artists can strategically utilise surveillance technologies as a way of political counter-surveillance to challenge systemic power asymmetries.