Memory is digital

Eight Great Sites of Beijing is the first solo photography show at Pkin Fine Arts for Wang Chuan, a noted professor at Beijing's Central Academy of Fine Arts.

Mounted on boards, 20 large digital artworks taken in the past year reveal the capital's historical landmarks in a new light. These include: Zhongnanhai, Beihai Park, Mount Yuquan, Fragrant Hills Park, Trees in mist in Jizhou, Jintai Xizhao Plaza, The moon over the Lugou (Marco Polo) Bridge at dawn, and the lush green Juyong Section.

Using digital imagery, Wang digs beneath the surface of the subject, unearthing the fundamental "compressed" features of Beijing. The images reveal traces of history, as Beijing develops quickly.

From Zhuang Zong of the Jin Dynasty (1168-1208) to Qianlong Emperor of the Qing Dynasty (1711-1799), emperors designated eight sights in Beijing as best representing the temperament and verve of the city.

"In the past 20 years, there has been no water in Yongding River, and the moon light over the Lugou Bridge has gradually faded from our minds. It was the Olympic Games that resumed its life and vigor," Wang says.

"Now the water and moonlight are both back, but the old scenery and the things we wanted to keep are nowhere to be found."

At the beginning of summer, Juyong Section luxuriates with trees, grass and flowers, which past emperors had admired. "But the awesomeness of the great pass has been destroyed by traffic, the coming and going of cable cars and the footsteps of the tourists. Standing on the hill and looking over the great pass of the old days, I always have the illusion that I am looking at a miniature garden," he says.

According to Wang Chunchen, an art critic and curator who works at the Art Museum of the Central Academy of Fine Arts, the Eight Great Sites of Beijing is a work of contemporary digital art.

This developed in the 1990s with the advent of the new technology, which has penetrated our everyday lives, as well as our art.

When Wang Chuan approaches this historical environment by digital means, he virtualizes the reality, embedding new visual reading systems into plain images. In the digital images, calculated by the computer, the eight great sights of Beijing, composed of pixels, show the actual direction of history.

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