August 9, 2007
8gg
Theatre 'Ceremony'
On august 5 2007, vi11age meets up with 8gg, in their home annex studio in an apartment building between the third and second north ring road, Beijing. vi11age speaks with Jiang Haiqing and Fu Yu about their work as multimedia artists.
vi11age. Could you maybe try to describe what you do?
8gg. We try to do different works that are related to music and vision.Our works include music, video, installation, theater, dance and web art.
8gg in their appartment
v. You described us how you studied geography, how did you become 8gg from that background?
8. We studied geography, because we were assigned to do so by the government. The only good thing about it is, that it is the place where we met each other. :-)
8gg came to be in a very natural way, because we both don't really like geography but we do like art and music.
v. A lot of the technology you use is custom-made, is it part of the art or a necessary evil?
8. Actually, we look forward to find the right technology so we don't need to develop it ourselves anymore. But at the moment it has already became a habit, therefore it is easier for us to do it ourselves than to find others' help.
In our opinion an artist does not need to control any technology. However as a digital artist it is necessary to know about new developments in technology.
v. Are there any guiding principles to your work?
8. To make ourselves happy.
v. A lot of your projects are co-operations with musicians, dj's, actors.How do you relate to them?
8. Sometimes it is arranged by the organization, like all our VJ performances for example. But it also happens that people like our work and they contact us. If we like their work ass well a co-operation arises. Like the drama-piece we did in 2003 and a dance performance we did this year.
v. Most of your work is shown abroad, is it hard to show your work in China?
8. Actually it isn't hard at all to show work in China now, it is too easy! But the hard thing is to find a professional producer.
It's not uncommon for a performance to start in 5 minutes and the projector is still on its way. How can you work with a producer if you can't trust the quality to reach our standard? That's the reason why we sometimes prefer to refuse invitations for performances or exhibitions in China.
News Dance
