China Expat is a cultural and literary forum for expatriates interested in China and has been published by Asia Briefing Ltd since 2001. The sites resident China culture writers have included such expatriate luminaries as 
A Second Life for Cao Fei
If Michelangelo were alive today, you wouldn’t find paintbrushes or sculpting knives in his studio. Oil on canvas has given us countless windows into creative minds, but today’s artist has so many options, and we’re not talking about photography. The real cutting edge of contemporary art is in video installations. The bumfuzzled, contemptuous looks of the punters, observing reels of film with no trace of narrative, prove it.
Cao Fei has taken things a step further. Why offer a 2D, moving-picture vision when you can ramp things up a dimension, let other people into your brainchild, and experience it in real time? So far, Second Life has failed to live up to its hype. A virtual universe in which people live by proxy through their avatars, Second Life is much like the 1946 RCA television, the one with the six-inch screen. Until the fifty-inch, flat screen HDTV version arrives, Cao Fei’s RMB City is an urban oasis in the undistinguished, uninspired Middlemarch enveloping most of Second Life.
Born in 1978, Cao Fei is on the international contemporary art scene ascendant. Not quite one of China’s self-absorbed ba ling hou, kids born after 1980, she nonetheless shares their proclivity for surreal escape. Much of her earlier work deals with manga, Japanese cartoon culture, and its subculture cosplay, in which fans dress up as their favorite characters. Despite its origins, manga has seduced more than one Chinese generation with its allure of fantasy cloaked in the mundane.
Why all the need for make believe? Don’t these youngsters today already have everything? Of course they do; that’s just the problem. With all the material needs assured, the more devilish steps on Maslow’s ladder begin to beckon. Coiffed, uncalloused little emperors yearn for the unattainable even more deeply than their farmhand forefathers did when hearing tales of the big city.
Thus the watermark of genius on Cao Fei’s RMB City. She’s demolished Beijing as though it were an old erector set model and rebuilt it as an island fantasmagoria, adding touches of both whimsy and horror that would draw the ire of any self-respecting shop teacher. Tiananmen Square has been repurposed as a giant swimming pool. The CCTV Tower dangles precariously from an overarching crane. A statue of Mao tilts half-submerged offshore, awaiting the outrage of a Chinese Charlton Heston.
Through it all strides China Tracy, Cao Fei’s avatar. A bosomy thing clad in metal armor, China Tracy is the ultimate tool in an artist’s workbox: an inventor, an architect, a builder and destroyer of worlds. RMB City has the potential depth of Middle Earth, and the allegorical power of a Bosch triptych. Moreover, it’s not a solo project. It’s an artists’ colony, among other things, with residents such as Huang He developing his Master Q’s Guide to Virtual Feng Shui.
No simplistic Utopia, Cao Fei’s RMB City bustles and booms just like the city it’s modeled on. Construction never ends, goods are pumped out of factories with candy-striped chimney stacks and sent off at a swarming port. One of the most striking icons in RMB City is the massive shopping cart hovering overhead, filled with skyscrapers, religious icons, and brand grails. Rather than just escape to Candy Land, Cao Fei has created a world equal parts critical reflection and creative platform.
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nice article.
Thanks for sharing.
Just go to secondlife.com if you're interested, fg.
And they're interactive!
Second Life is a wank, but Beijing-based artist Cao Fei, aka China Tracy, has made one of the more worthwhile visual creations to come out of the popular virtual reality website.
is it an oil plant or something? lol
You're stepping on my act, kid.
Cao Fei is no doubt one of the most remarkable and powerful artists of this generation. Born in 1978 in Guangzhou, Cao Fei has grown up in the world of electronic entertainments and advertisements. Fascinated by the vibrant landscapes of the consumer society, She started with her artistic career at an extremely young age. Cao Fei has developed a highly personal language of image making demonstrating the fantasy, desire, critique and jouissance vis-à-vis the mutating reality.
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I can say these pictures are great. its design, colours, dimension and other aspect is very artistic and have art value. Even my art knowledge is limited but i see these pictures is amazing.
She started with her artistic career at an extremely young age. Cao Fei has developed a highly personal language of image making demonstrating the fantasy, desire, critique and jouissance vis-à-vis the mutating reality.
He is the famous artist of all times. Many history books contain his name as an artist in chinese civilization.
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Artist Cao Fei, though only 29, is nothing if not confident in her artistic vision. “A lot of my friends have an idol, and when they start out, their films look a lot like their idols’. It isn’t until later that they find their own place,” says Cao, on the phone from Istanbul, where she’s participating in that city’s 10th International Biennial. “My thinking is, why not find your place from the get-go and do what you want to do?”
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Cao Fei’s work reflects the fluidity of a world in which cultures have mixed and diverged in rapid evolution. Her video installations and new media works explore perception and reality in places as diverse as a Chinese factory and the virtual world of Second Life.
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She has participated in the New Museum Triennial (2009); Carnegie International, Pittsburgh (2008); Prospect.1 New Orleans (2008); Yokohama Triennial (2008); and Istanbul, Lyon, and Venice Biennials (2007). Her work has appeared at the New Museum, New York (2008); Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (2007); P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, New York (2006); and Asia Society, New York (2006). Cao Fei lives and works in Beijing.
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Depictions of Chinese architecture and landscape abound in scenes of hyper-capitalistic Pearl River Delta development, in images that echo traditional Chinese painting, and in the design of her own virtual utopia, RMB City. Fascinated by the world of Second Life, Cao Fei has created several works in which she is both participant and observer through her Second Life avatar, China Tracy, who acts as a guide, philosopher, and tourist.
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Cao Fei’s work has appeared in solo exhibitions at the Serpentine Gallery, London (2008); Orange County Museum of Art, Newport Beach, California (2007); Museum Het Domein, Sittard, Netherlands (2006); and Para Site Art Space, Hong Kong (2006).
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Your work is exhilarating, especially Cao Fei Mirage. I’ve self published 4 children’s books, one called Wandawillie with wonderful whimsical illustrations. May your work be blessed and I hope someday it might be in Orlando, Florida. If it has, I probably missed it.