The Liu Dao collective has always been fascinated with the ability of technology to come alive, to move and to interact with a lively vigor. And with its fingers firmly on the pulse of Shanghai, island6’s newest exhibition, Body-City-Mechanism, explores not only the vital signs of our city but the ability of it to take a life, and perhaps a personality, of its own. Please join us on April 25th for our 52nd exhibition at our m50 home for a multimedia delight exploring ideas of urban growth, biological design and metropolitan identity through a series of interactive artworks and installations. While such metaphors of nature’s laws shape our sense of cities, they don't force us into a static view. We see each city, and we see Shanghai, as part of a dynamic ecosystem, a singular evolutionary matrix and like every living creature, it has a genetic code. This is expressed through architectural styles, landmarks and spatial characteristics, through art, cultural histories and people- the DNA of the urban environment. As the “father of modern anthropology”, Claude Levi-Strauss, beautifully stated “By its form as by the manner of its birth, the city has elements at once of biological procreation, organic evolution and aesthetic creation. It is both a natural object and a thing to be cultivated; individual and group; something lived and something dreamed.”1The identity of a city is created and nurtured by the stories and ideas of those that have lived and journeyed through it, collectively and perpetually giving it new life, anima, and character; a timeless evolving poem.

Just like living creatures, cities grow, change and decay. They expand and consume and even take on personalities and identities of their own. It is the collective shaping of character that pushed Shanghai from the “Whore of the Orient” to its reigning Queen status. Even the architecture speaks of both eras, holding on to and resembling the city’s vast memory and consciousness, while eagerly and proudly displaying her new, shiny crown. The walls between the past and present are porous; the golden days of bygone Shanghai have not yet vanished. However, if too much of the past is lost, the architectural heritage and cognizance is destroyed and the city’s communal memory of its unique identity is violated. The double helix of Shanghai would be altered perhaps resembling the great Metropolis of the Fritz Lang film, a tech noir of the Anthropogenic era or a Baudrillard-esque simulation.

Cities are not static objects, but active arenas marked by continuous energy flow and transformation of which landscape, building and technology are not permanent structures but transitional manifestations. Flux, systematic interactions and metabolic exchanges now determine the geography of a new urban individuality, a city as body. Like a biological organism, the urbanized landscape is an open system, forever changing and flickering like the lights on an LED screen though just as delicate and natural as our Jianzhi and rice paper illuminations. Continuing with Liu Dao’s affinity towards technological flair and innovation using state of the art LED, photography, video, animation, sculpture and interactive artwork, Body-City-Mechanism, is an exploration into the personality, vitality and ability of our city, the Queen of the Orient, to exist, flourish, and to resemble life on her own.

Courtesy of Island6 Arts Center