Hu Yun, Wang Xiaoqu

X Museum Triennial is an ongoing investigation into the millennial zeitgeist through visual arts and many other disciplines that take part in sociocultural evolutions. It is a three-year rhythmic review of Chinese contemporary art and its development with a focus on emerging artists. Precisely 100 years ago, the world’s first commercial radio station KDKA launched its inaugural broadcasting of the American presidential election in the early winter of 1920. The huge hit of live media combined with the political event marked the beginning of a new era of mass media. Live media and live-ness have thereafter dramatically improved the efficiency of information sharing and further accelerated the process of globalisation.

Such qualities of live-ness echoed Aristotle’s elaboration on friendship and ‘con-senting’ [synaisthanomenoi, sensing together], in which he said, “One must therefore also ‘con-sent’ that his friend exists, and this happens by living together and by sharing acts and thoughts in common [koinōnein].” Newest technologies and gadgets are extensions of human sensory organs, they enlarge our perceptions and emotions, at the same time synchronise us in the global world of immateriality, geographic boundaries are eliminated.

“How Do We Begin?” embraces the age that we inhabit, celebrates the accessibility of knowledge and information embodied by the digital age, experiences, and excitements brought by new media and cutting-edge technologies. At the same time, it acknowledges the invasion of toxic information that shaping physical relationships and interrupting social structures. Unlike the pre-digital age, current media platforms provide real-time communications and immersive experiences for interactivity than merely producing content; our concurrent perceptions have therefore been increased than ever before. The invisible, expanded field that we inhabit, from XR (extended reality), AI (artificial intelligence), to recent implemented 5G data networks technology, consistently challenges the way we communicate with others, and perceive things. The pandemic of COVID-19 accelerated the process of digitalisation of many industries: audio-visual goes DRM-free, meetings and events are implanted into cameras, you can easily navigate yourself amongst master paintings and ancient artefacts through online exhibitions, gadgets as social enabler navigate us… Nevertheless, immaterial abundance and information excess, on the contrary, contributed to material insufficiency, it is rather a quest now for an ideal distance to create between ourselves and information redundancy.

Characterised by sharing and mutuality, contemporary art went beyond the confinement of disciplinary boundaries and knowledge. “How Do We Begin?” sees its exhibition spaces as sites of collaboration and production, attempts to refine the evolving zeitgeist of the millennial. It actively invites and encourages audience and art practitioners to reflect on the multifaceted phenomena of the Information Age, and imagines the significance by sensing, sharing and living together.