WH: Your two most recent groups of works, The Last Judgment in Cyberspace and H2O, both use an abstracted image of yourself as a digital mold. In your earlier photographs, you used a sculptural figure also based on yourself. From this perspective, are the two different phases somehow connected?

　　MXC: Yes, they are related. In the first phase of my art, I had a sculptural “me” that existed in reality such that you could see and touch it. Now, this digital “me” only exists in the computer, it can be seen but not touched. But, they can all be called “sculptures,” and all are connected to “me.”

　　WH: So, you think of the first set of works as photographs and a record of reality; while the second set of works are different because they use a digital model, made on a computer, and then completed like a blueprint. Given these differences, how should we call this second group of works? Are they computer art or photographs?

　　MXC: Perhaps this depends on which angle you view them from. If you acknowledge the software’s virtual camera and approve this kind of means of computer photography, then you can call it a type of photography. But, it is still one that sits on the fringes of photography, as it is really quite different from traditional methods. It’s not entirely suitable to define it as photography. Perhaps it could be called computer art or digital imagery, but this depends on your point of view.

　　WH: Perhaps this needs to be determined according to the specific means of realization. I can imagine the development of this kind of digital imagery into a holographic portrait, thereby becoming a complete visual illusion.

　　MXC: There are a lot of things that still cannot be explicitly defined, or perhaps the rate of its development defines it. A few centuries ago, some definitions persisted for hundreds of years. But, nowadays, a definition from just a few years back might appear imprecise today. Now, when we look at how computers were used as a medium for producing works ten years ago, it seems as simple and unaffected as art from the Middle Ages. I told myself: lose no time, immerse yourself, it doesn’t matter what is produced in the end. Using these kinds of new media, what is definite is that one can always attempt new things, and it is always worth it.

　　September 6, 2007, Beijing

　　(Translated by Peggy Wang)

　　For the record, the original works quoted by Miao Xiaochun in his H2O series are listed below:

【编辑：小红】

编辑：admin