The new media installation Journey To The West (below) by Feng Mengbo and one of his ink paintings. Photos: Courtesy of Shanghai Gallery of Art

By Nick Muzyczka

Feng Mengbo's aesthetic is a curious blend of traditional Chinese painting and new media. The force of binary logic is combined with ancient techniques in a newly commissioned exhibition entitled Journey To The West, currently showing at the Shanghai Gallery of Art on the Bund.

Internationally famous for his manipulation of video game technologies, Feng's latest Shanghai exhibition comprises two parts.

On the walls hang the artist's paintings, which are made from Chinese ink, tea and inkjet on rice paper. They are mostly landscape scenes, very much reminiscent of Song Dynasty (960-1279) works, but with the crucial difference of having their forms generated by computer modeling.

The paintings depict fantastically rich geological forms, with a focus on rocks and water. Sometimes sharp, craggy and malevolent, at others rounded and lush; Feng's various mountains, hills and cliff faces are rendered in textures that suggest weathered maps or coffee-stained tables.

It is what is missing, however, that gives these pieces their value. The paintings are purposely incomplete, playing with the abstract forms generated by the computer. Where we expect a valley, we are given a vacuum, or occasionally, faint blue lines that silently map 3-D geometric space. In places sections of mountains are displaced spatially, moved to unanticipated planes or rendered in cross-sectional forms.

The combination of the traditional and the modern has a haunting, almost existentially discomforting aspect in Feng's work. Glassy bodies of water that are very much present in the foreground of pictures fade into abstract pools of nothingness.

Feng presents a conceptual twist to the classic Chinese representation (Song-style paintings/Taoism) of the individual lost in the grandiose expansiveness of nature. Here, loneliness is not forced on the individual through nature, but by the thought that landscapes are simply constructs, that reality can be reduced to mapping and modeling.

In the words of the artist: "The idea that something as solid as Song-style paintings can appear so empty and light makes my hair stand on end."

Curator Li Zhenhua sees in Feng's long career a dedication to a reflective, thoughtful approach, an unwillingness to follow trends and a spontaneity that is distinctive. Li contrasts Feng's work with "the flashy pastiche and misuses of culture which were frequently seen in the works of kitsch and pop art, then became truly characteristic of China."

Though the reception to the exhibition was generally positive at the opening ceremony, not all visitors were entirely convinced. "You get a sense of how computerized and robotic our world is becoming, but I would seek solutions rather than more commentary, because I am already familiar with this idea," Darja Filippova, the executive editor of the CIGE Gallery Guide told the Global Times.

"For that part of me that has already turned into a computer, the work is very aesthetically pleasing, but I want something for my soul," she added.

In part two of the exhibition, Feng projects an interactive set of games onto the gallery floor, mostly classics like Space Invaders and Pong that visitors can play. In the background, rendered in bright reds and greens (and somewhat confusing) are scenes from the Chinese classic novel Journey To The West.

There is something more abrasive about the juxtaposition of tradition and modernity in this new media piece. It was reasonably interesting to note the reaction of those gathered around the work.

The players of the games were invariably more interested in the gameplay, while those who stood around appeared to be more involved in deciphering the obscure scenes from the story.

While the Global Times remains skeptical about the effectiveness of this particular piece, curator Li sees importance in Feng's focus on gaming more generally: "The portrayal of gaming phenomena in art can be seen as a sign of the future, as well as the greatest means of its subversion. Through imitating the game image, the artist has assigned other cultural meanings and significance, by freezing it in a static image or by adding an impossible opponent."

In his curatorial statement Li raises the valid question of what value society places, or should place, on works of art that are informed by the digital (and therefore infinitely reproducible) modern existence.

How will the traditional, mainstream conceptions of originality and authenticity be affected by new media techniques that result in works that "transcend the physical object," because of their capacity for multiple instantiations?

Journey To The West doesn't, however, address this issue in any direct way. In Feng's work the computer modeling, which is to an extent fixed rigidly by logic, works as a fertile source of inspiration for the ink painting, which is not rigid. This is still a far cry from some sort of highly complicated painting-by-numbers that may worry some critics.

Date: Until October 17, 11 am to 9 pm

Venue: Shanghai Gallery of Art 沪ç"³ç"»å»Š

Address: 3/F, 3 Zhongshan Dongyi Road

中山东一路3号3楼

Admission: Free

Call 6321-5757 for details