Cao Fei:Evokes Possibilities for Social Transformation

　　More synthetic in scope than these previous works, the eight-minute video COSPlayers, 2004, (along with a related series of photographs)is both critical and spectacular ,using pop culture as a bridge rather than as a simple reference in the ubiquitous orgy of appropriation and revival. The title refers to the subculture of costume play in which young men and women dress an Japanese anime characters and behave an their chosen avatars. Cloaked in black capes and metallic suits and wielding menacing weapons, which are supposed to give them magical powers, Cao Fei "COSplays" chase each other across the fields outside Guangzhou and stalk anonymous urban spaces. Along the way, the camera takes in enormous construction sites and herds of livestock, in an attempt to grasp the marvelous and strange contrasts in the heart of the real city. Characterized by a temporal telescoping borrowed from the theater, the disjointed narrative is left suspended, and the film ends with the unlikely heroes returned to their homes, where, like ordinary teenagers, they eat and nap in the vicinity of their distracted parents. With COSPlayers, the fairy tale finds an ultracontemporary aesthetic in Cao Fei's experimental cinema, a world where anime flaneurs roam a fascinating and alienating environment of urban mutation.

　　Though rooted in daily life, Cao Fei's work evokes countless possibilities for social transformation. This sociopolitical edge is particularly evident in the Da Zha Lan Project, a research initiative undertaken by a loose collective of photographers, filmmakers, and other volunteers, co-organized by Cao Fei. Examining one of the poorest neighborhoods in Beijing, the group documents the evolving negotiations between traditional life and impending modernity in an area where the population density can reach a staggering forty-five thousand people per square kilometer. The project is part of a series of research and film works on the theme of Chinese urbanization and social organization, which originated with the San Yuan Li Project(shown in 2003 at the Venice Biennale) and which will culminate in 2006 with a new study in Shanghai. The group's efforts will be showcased in May at the Center for Art and Median(ZKM) in Karlsruhe, Germany, providing yet another window onto Cao Fei's protean shuttling among media -and on the complicated reciprocities between her documentary work and more fantastic moders.