Trojan Horse: Chinese Video Art,Its Theory,Practice And Cultural Agency(1996-2006)

This dissertation examines the role that video art has played as an agent of change in the development of contemporary art in China. During the Nineteen-Nineties video art helped construct a bridge over the chasm between official and underground avant-garde art. Video art benefitted from having associations with new technology while having no strong ideological bias, and as such became a more acceptable form to the authorities compared with performance and installation art. The purpose of this thesis is to examine how video art developed in China, how it helped to make institutional change possible, and what aesthetics and theories are unique in Chinese video art.I focus on the period between 1996 and 2006, which I see as the golden age of video art in China; it is also the key period of transformation of video art into new media art; and also the pivotal turning point for art education in China. Since video art is a Western concept, first I begin by giving a comprehensive historical look of what we understand as video art, its multiple conceptions and influences by technology. Then I give a detailed investigation of how video art was introduced in China and how it developed in the unique Chinese context of the three parallel art world system(i.e., official social realism tradition, Chinese literati aesthetic and international contemporary art).I make use of the concept of cultural agency, the idea that states that any big or small contribution can make a huge impact for the benefit of society. China has been no exception, and throughout the years of "Reform and Opening" initiated by Deng Xiaoping, there have been multiple artist’s strategies to improve local conditions to make and exhibit art for the advancement of society.