Cao Fei: RMB City

Beijing-based emerging artist Cao Fei started the ongoing Internet project RMB City in 2009; an online artwork public community existing through the 3D world Second Life. Users participate by adopting an online personality, exploring and interacting in a hyper-real art world. Her work is both an expanding platform for public creativity and discussion, and a metaphor for the rapid expansion of Chinese super-cities. Fei is both creator and participator, overseeing the work in the real world while living vicariously through her avatar Tracey China in her e-world.

We see RMB City in the Shiseido Gallery through projected works. Cut-and-pasted clips from the artificial utopia create videos, dominating entire walls of this Tokyo gallery where we receive a soaring tour of Fei’s architectural dreamscapes. The otherworldly seems both monolithic and shockingly intimate. 'i.Mirror' shows Fei’s character exploring the twisted metropolis, and in 'Live at RMB City' she guides her son on a journey through the landscape. Her skillfully crafted videos are an intriguing presentation of the computer-generated environment. These works go far beyond simply offering us a glimpse of Fei’s artistic community. She simulates, through metaphorical incarnation, a discourse on the liberalization and economy of China. Her virtual escapism cunningly conjures images of a 'Red' society, level and equal within an expanding urban network. Fei’s success through this digital veil is both exciting and expansively avant-garde.