Cao Fei’s Haze and Fog portrays the banal daily lives of new city dwellers that left behind more traditional living arrangements for urban comforts to deliver a new kind of zombie film set in modern China. The characters—alluding to Cao’s work with Second Life in RMB City— are symbols or avatars of both the modern and traditional. These new residents are essentially zombies defined by the tenuous relationship linking internal “deadness” with vitality. In what the artist describes as “magical metropolises”, the daily rituals of displaced rural people become meaningless, if not absurd, when transposed in a city. Service industry workers such as cleaners, real estate agents, sex workers, delivery people, nannies and security guards can only feel alienated in the fog of their seemingly neutral living spaces. After all, being stationary is the only way to see glitches in the system in time of rapid changes. The director’s cut of Haze and Fog will be screened as part of the public programme “A hollow in a world too full”, a solo exhibition by Cao Fei held at Tai Kwun Contemporary.
“Art After Hours” is an evening event series presented by Tai Kwun Contemporary that will talk with you, sing with you, show and tackle something new every time. Usually held on Fridays at 7pm, “Art After Hours” aims to sharpen art awareness through talks, performances and screenings by artists, writers, intellectuals and curators alike.
