The project of "Future of Today: Imaginary Future" which was launched in 2015 won a high degree of attention, aiming to exploring the most pioneering and futuristic concept of museum space, which represents an experimental discussion on physical art galleries, virtual reality and future art forms. In July 2017, Today Art Museum again presents "Today Art Museum ? Future Museum", and working together with XIAOMI mobile phone to enrich the concept of the future museums, introducing a brand-new exhibition combining black technology and art as a whole, upgrading the exhibition with interactive experience.

On the July 15, “.Zip Future Rhapsody | Xiaomi · Future of Today” opened in Building 1 of the Today Art Museum. The exhibition is jointly launched by Gao Peng, Director of Today Art Museum, sculptor Sui Jianguo, architect Wang Hui, and the co-founder of XIAOMI Li Wanqiang, with international curator Huang Du and Philipp Ziegler, Director of curatorial department of ZKM Media and Art Center serving as academic advisors, invited the famous artist Wu Juehui and Yan Yan, the deputy director of the exhibition and academy of Today Art Museum to serve as the curators.

The exhibition includes installations, experimental music, audio-visual arts, and interactive works, including a series of works of image, sound and light, and installation, fully utilizing the space to establish interaction with the viewers. In the “.Zip Future Rhapsody | Xiaomi · Future of Today” exhibition, themed on “.zip”, the curators have weaved works of different artists into a brand-new exhibition. The theme “.zip” extends its meaning from the literal notion of compression and decompression into an understanding of the future, that various artistic expression are works of different dimensions emerged from the “big bang”. The future shall be exempt from the constraints of time and space and it cannot and should not be defined.

Future of Today compresses these works together like a black hole in the universe. The immersive experience provided by the works functions as an externalized carrier (of visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory, gustatory sensation, etc.) of individual and collective imagination. The works in this exhibition will keep breaking and reshaping our perception of time and space through experiences of different sensations. The audience will be immersed in an imaginary space, engaging in the decompression process of zip files.

Curator Wu Juehui said that "the expansion of the universe is like a continuous decompression process, with new formats emerging from time to time, and old ones fading away. In the digital universe, formats are the suffixes of all things, including humans themselves. Within the large format system, everyone is assigned a format, .txt .jpg .ppt .exe or just a bug. We are subjected to the formatting process when we are applying it on everything else. If human beings were to become immortal, our consciousness must have also been stored in a certain format. Formats determine the dimensions of imagination and the expressions of language. It almost seems like all the efforts has to be converted into some formats before they are valid.

Moreover, Today Art Museum first demolished part of the building in the process of the planning and arranging the exhibition “Future of Today”, to get a multi-floor perspective in the main exhibition hall, and making full use of the channels of the building, to create a strange space. The exhibition remains on view till September 16.

Text and photo courtesy of the organizer

Translated by Chen Peihua and edited by Sue/CAFA ART INFO

About the exhibition

Title: “.Zip Future Rhapsody | Xiaomi · Future of Today”

Duration: July 16 – September 16, 2017

Curators: Wu Juehui, Yan Yan

Artists: Catherine Chalmers, Charles Lindsay+ Su Shaoyu, Claude Lévêque, Cao Yuxi, Chen Xi’an, Feng Mengbo, Feng Hao, Guo Ruiwen, Guo Xi, Gan Jian, Hong Qile, I & C, Jiang Jun, Lin Xin, Liu Jiayu, Refik Anadol, Ren Yuan, Rao Guangzhen, Shi Zheng, Shi Chuan, Song Zhenxi, Shen Ligong, Wang Zhi’ang, Wang Zhipeng, Zheng Da x Gao Yujie x Low Tech Art Lab