SCREENING

Technotopias: A Cao Fei Multiverse

Oscillating between virtuality and reality, Cao Fei's practice often seeks to uncover humanity in the face of rapid technological developments and urban change.

A celebrated international artist who consistently contributes to the ever-changing shape of Asian futurism, Cao Fei's remarkable twenty-year career includes a series of moving image work that encapsulate the Asian dilemmas between progress and culture in mundane settings punctured by surreal moments.

From the critically acclaimed Asia One commissioned by the Guggenheim Museum, to the dystopic miniature dioramas of La Town and finally, her most recent sci-fi epic Nova, Cao Fei creates worlds that are both poignant and playful. Some even feature running motifs, such as the giant octopus in La Town that makes an appearance in The Midnight Wanderer (produced by NOWNESS), starring Cao Fei herself as a disgruntled exhibition cleaner.

Technotopias: A Cao Fei Multiverse encourages the joyful in the banal; the will to dream of a better future in an increasingly fractured society, serving as a prescient counterpoint to western-lensed ideals of the future. This programme complements the exhibition, New Eden: Science Fiction Mythologies Transformed.

Image caption:
Film still from Asia One by Cao Fei, 2018, courtesy of the artist

FAQ

Films

The Midnight Wanderer (2022)

By Chen Yurui
9min 22secs, HD video
PG

The Midnight Wanderer will be screened before each film programme.

Showtimes
19 Jan, Fri, 5pm
20 Jan, Sat, 5pm
21 Jan, Sun, 5pm
27 Jan, Sat, 2pm
27 Jan, Sat, 4.30pm
28 Jan, Sun, 2pm
28 Jan, Sun, 4.30pm

The Midnight Wanderer is an experiential adaptation of Cao Fei’s Beijing show Staging The Era in UCCA Center for Contemporary Art and incorporates the artist’s interest in parallel worlds and digital realms. The film opens with Cao Fei as a disgruntled exhibition cleaner who has been tasked with clearing away the detritus of the day. Mop in hand, she becomes entranced by the giant octopus’s googly gaze—pulling her into a dream state where characters from the exhibition come alive in unexpected ways.

Special thanks to NOWNESS CHINA.
La Town (2014)

41mins 58secs, video
R21 (Sexual Scenes)
Southeast Asia Premiere

Showtimes
20 Jan, Sat, 5pm
27 Jan, Sat, 11.30am
27 Jan, Sat, 4.30pm
28 Jan, Sun, 2pm

Inspired by Alain Resnais’s seminal classic Hiroshima Mon Amour, a mythical metropolis has been destroyed by unknown forces - although the damage is obvious, the camera navigates across elaborate, handmade dioramas, and the inhabitants of La Town carry on with their activities and the normality of everyday life pervades.

La Town will be screened before Asia One.
Asia One (2018)

63mins 20secs, video
PG
Southeast Asia Premiere

The film La Town will be screened before Asia One.

Two lonely humans employed within a giant futuristic sorting center are on a meet-cute collision course. Distanced by the vastness and hyperefficiency of automata surrounding them, they are oblivious of the each other’s existence – that is until a sudden desire for rebellion seizes them, and the fight against the predictability and monotony of system begins.
Nova (2019)

97min 13sec, HD video
PG13 (Some Sexual References)
Southeast Asia Premiere

Showtimes
19 Jan, Fri, 5pm
21 Jan, Sun, 5pm
27 Jan, Sat, 2pm
28 Jan, Sun, 4.30pm

A computer engineering company undertakes a secret mission and a scientist experiments on his own son. The boy becomes a digital soul existing in a computerized world, moving between the past and future, dreams and reality.