Ruiqi Zhang
张瑞麒








































email: info@zhang-ruiqi.com 
instagram: ruiqi_zhang_
about

© Ruiqi Zhang 2024


Ruiqi Zhang
张瑞麒

He is a multimedia artist and educator based in Richmond Virginia. His practice and research press on sensitivity to digital technology when engaged in issues of online identity, media discourse, Internet culture, and critical surroundings. His initial awareness of digital power was formed by and linked through video art, which prompted his further exploration of ideology and cross-cultural experiences in 3D software, moving images, and video installations.

He employed a meandering narration approach to redirect his focus to the potential of reconfiguring autonomy, confrontation, and imagination. Through the organization of various irrelevant materials (3D objects, quotes, found images, theories, and scattered factors) in random juxtapositions, a hybrid stimulus is generated for snap meditation. His idea/method emulates the platform-based algorithmic mechanism, cultivating a non-human-centered perspective to reexamine the locus of our language.

email: info@zhang-ruiqi.com
ins: ruiqi_zhang_
about

The Graceful Site
work in progress, 2024

The Graceful Site is a simulated video work depicting a post-apocalyptic landscape, where chaos reigns, and people hide, yet the economic system continues to function. The site serves as a new field for experimenting with anarchistic economic models, relying on excess heat from cryptocurrency mining and API access to Oracle networks to maintain stable operations.


Monument Emitter
3D rendered video, 06:16, 2023


“When they trumpeted the meliorative power of beauty, they were stating the belief in its capacity to shape human thought and behavior” (William H. Wilson, 1989). This quotation is from the book The City Beautiful Movement, which introduced an urban planning movement in the United States from the 1890s to the 1920s. The movement emphasizes the significant influence of civic pride and engagement in shaping civic virtue and social harmony. Richmond is one of the earliest cities to adopt a proposal to build a broad avenue with monuments in the City Beautiful manner.

This work recreates some representative monument bases in 3D software and serves as a prompt to review the entrenched narratives related to monuments and the sanitized community consciousness. As the animation evolves, the empty base models are converted into lawn sprinklers, emitting water droplets that expand the scope of these revered objects. The animation is designed as a desktop screensaver that offers a meditative space to reconsider the historical heritage as catalysts for prompting social justice discourse and engagement.

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The Burning Tower
4k video, 17:32, 2022

The Burning Tower
(2022) is a desktop film that offers a concise review of the advancements in 5G communication technology and the evolution of the Internet. It delves into the intricate relationship between conspiracy theories, rumors, and network infrastructure. The film is structured into four interconnected segments, each continuously striving to rationalize the seemingly irrational act of burning a cell tower.

The inspiration for the storyline was drawn from real-world news, attempting to envision a plausible scenario behind the burning of a 5G cell tower. The film follows the perspectives of a virtual 3D male and the narration of a female anchor. It explores the inner connections between the pioneering hypertext project, the 5G protocol, and the pathways of submarine optical cables.

vimeo

Manifesto: Art Downgrade
single channel video, 04:22, 2019

Manifesto: Art Downgrade is a composite concept that combines art and economics, from the research of image production related to the popularity of low-cost smartphones and the slowdown of economic growth in China. Mass production by China's online rural community and developed network infrastructure have created greater market wealth and contributed to emerging Internet cultures. This work advocates evaluate alternative perspectives and decentralization of urban narrative in contemporary art creation. By splicing green screen materials from the Internet and selfie clips made by mobile phones, the manifesto aims to evoke the creative impulse and imagination of ordinary/minority/vulnerable people, to express their voice by using the integration of open-source media, mobile technology, and daily labor in creation.


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Galaxy Equivalent Parallel Objects
digital video, 25:32, 2019

Galaxy Equivalent Parallel Objects is a fictional autobiographical film about the artist's artistic concepts, childhood anecdotes, and online identity construction strategies. This work explores the contemporary narrative influenced by mobile technology, that restored the viewing experience of people browsing short-video social media through continuous visual and audio stimulation and ever-changing content editing. Self-portraits from different social media filters, found footage from Kwai, consumer product advertisements, vintage animation loops, and dictated family history are collaged in the film, to challenge people’s ability to read complex information.

Inspired by the article Movies and Objects—Is There an Object-Oriented Film Theory? (电影与物——是否存在一种以物为导向的电影理论?) , this widescreen film exams the decentralized creation method and the unconscious montage. By offering the ostensible intellectual questions and irrelevant answers, the dialogue raises questions about how we build connections among disordered footages, and how short-video social media algorithms imperceptibly shaped our way of watching.

vimeo