1,000,000,000 mobile universes

Concept and Director：Tan Tan

Artist: Tan Tan, Eric Bribosia

Cooperative artists: artist group “Poor CD Band”

Production year: 2015

 The premiere of this performance was implemented at the opening of “DM@CC——2015 Wuhan Digital Art Invitational Exhibition” in Wuhan Art Museum.

This participatory performance is based on “WeChat”, the most used online social media in China. Actually, the major part of the performance only happened on this App, so the spectators could only “saw” the show on their own cellphones after scanning many OR codes, and entering a “chatting group”. Namely, the performance doesn’t exist only if the audience participates in, thus the audience is meanwhile the performers.

In the recent 30 years, Chinese society has moved rapidly into the virtual world, which is comprised of online social networks, online shopping, banking, administration, etc., nearly everything you would need in daily life has settled down on the Internet. One of the most considerable changes imposed by this phenomenon is that people’s relationship could be only built and developed online. Therefore, this work attempts to build a “virtual network” through a performance, as an extract of a daily social scene in China.

The performance is divided into three sections.

The first section of the performance: one QR code on the big screen lead the audience to a chatting group on Wechat, where they saw the performers were hiding in many corners of the museum in photos and videos, meanwhile sending text and voice messages "we are performing, you are also performing." Gradually, the performers and the audience chatted together on random topics, they even sent some money to each other as gifts.

The second section of the performance: the performers appeared and walking into the audience. Surprisingly, they didn’t “perform” in a conventional way but only ask the audience to scan the QR codes on their mobiles wordlessly. These codes were linked with their self-introductions, marriage-seeking advertisements, online shops, etc.

The third section of the performance:  Tan Tan and Eric Bribosia showed up on the stage and persuaded the audience to lay down their mobiles. Eventually, the already mixed community with artists and onlookers did a “sacrificial ritual” with people's cellphones and some fake "iphones" together.