CC Contemporary Art Exhibition

The 1st Large-Scale CC Contemporary Art Exhibition “Remix and Share” Open at 798 Art Zone

Co-organized by Creative Commons China Mainland and Artintern, and with additional support from a number of organizations including Inter Art Center, Hudong wiki, and mash4, the Remix and Share: CC Art Exhibition was open on December 13, 2009 in Inter Art Center, 798 Art Zone, Beijing. More than 200 participants, including artists presenting their works, the media, invited guests from various fields, and the project team and volunteers of CC China Mainland, came to attend the opening ceremony.

The exhibition presents CC-licensed art works from artists across the country. It received so much responses that during just a one month period, more than 200 artists have submitted works in various forms including new media, devices, videos, easel painting, etc. Works presented at the exhibit are from more than 60 artists, selected to match the size of the venue and theme of the event. Some well-known Chinese artists including Cao Fei, Yan Jun, Wu Xiaojun and Liu Wei are also invited to present their CC licensed works at the exhibit.

The opening ceremony started by 3:00 p.m. Opening remarks were then given byProf. Chunyan Wang of Renmin University of China, Project lead of Creative Commons China Mainland,; Mr. Hong Wu, curator of the exhibition and founder of Artintern ; Dr. Kathleen Hartford, Programme Officer of the Ford Foundation; Dr. Haidong Pai, CEO of Hudong.com; Dr. Tyng-Ruey Chuang of Institute of Information Science of Academia Sinica, Project Lead of CC Taiwan; Mr. Escher Tsai, artist and curator from Taiwan and Prof. Yahong Li of Hong Kong University, and other distinguish guests also presented at the opening ceremony. Prof. Chunyan Wang offered welcome remarks and addressed to the audience about the purposes of organizing this exhibition together with the art circle: to start and promote legal share of local art works, to encourage creative activities and to promote creative collaboration. She indicated that the CC licenses are intended to promote the concept of share under a series of reasonable guidelines, and emphasised that the creativity of a society is always based on the abundance of existing knowledge achievements. She also introduced the various promotional activities of CC China Mainland since its establishment. The project is devoted to the promotion of Creative Commons in various fields, including education, science, culture, art, etc. This exhibition has received wide responses from contemporary artists. The acceptance of these licenses by artists illustrated that this flexible copyright option has gained significant recognition in the circle of contemporary art in China.

Curator of the exhibition, Mr. Wu Hong introduced the concept of the event: as the Internet brought about an integration of creative works from all over the world, made available that netizens worldwide spontaneously organize these works to develop new content, the Internet is becoming a knowledge platform with the spirit of “share, remix and reuse – legally”. Everyone is the user and at the same time the contributor. What’s more, the history of human beings witnessed that the development of civilization is based on existing knowledge achievements. In order to protect the interest of innovators and authors, and to promote the advancement of human knowledge properly, with the background of modern contract spirit, the human beings now choose to step to a new era of legally share, remix and reuse.

Professor Kathleen Hartford, Programme Officer of the Ford Foundation explained the significance of a balanced copyright protection by quoting the principles of American copyright law, and emphasised the importance of legal share and reuse as promoted by CC China Mainland. CEO of Hudong.com, one of co-organizers of this event, Dr. Pan Haidong addressed the collaboration between Hudong wiki and CC China Mainland and the distinctive feature of Hudong wiki – the public participation, and its integration with Creative Commons. In the end, Mr. Zhu Handong, co-curator of the exhibition and project manager of CC China Mainland announced the list of participating artists.

Also, the whole project team of Creative Commons China Mainland presented in the ceremony to extend their gratitude to the artists and the public. Because of a strong recognition of open copyright protection and of legal share of knowledge achievements by the society, the team worked collaboratively with Creative Commoners, devoting themselves to CC promotional works during all off-hours. What’s more, a lot of CC volunteers are also active in this occasion. They have contributed to the preparation, the opening ceremony and the forum. It is the collaborative devotion from volunteers and the project team that ensured the success of this exhibition.

“Remix and Share” Cross-Domain Forum After the opening ceremony, Artists and members from CC China Mainland, joined by project leads and representatives from Creative Commons Asia-Pacific Region including Taiwan, Hong Kong and Australia, convened a forum under the theme of the exhibition: “Remix and Share”. The forum was chaired by Curator of the exhibition, Mr. Wu Hong and Vice-director of Tsinghua Institute for Internet Behaviour, team member of CC China Mainland, Dr. Li Xu. It focused on the concept of “remix and share”, with an additional special session for experiences sharing between CC Asia-Pacific regions’ project teams in promotional activities. Representatives from the regions introduced and discussed the promotion of CC in their own jurisdictions, with special focuses on the exploration and practices of “art and share”.

In this forum, Mr. Kong Lingqian, board member of the advisory Board of CC China Mainland and founder of Kong Bohua TCM School, delivered a great speech to the audience. He started by analyzing the soul of share with theories of Confucius, and shared with the guests the ideas in cultural phenomenon of “remix” and “share”.

Dr. Tyng-Ruey Chuang, research fellow of Institute of Information Science of Academia Sinica and Project Lead of CC Taiwan delivered a presentation titled Collaborative works and Public License to describe the practices of CC Taiwan. After that, another guest from Taiwan, well known new media artist Mr. Escher Tsai shared his experience from the aspect of new media with a speech titled Path of CC. He also made an introduction of the Playaround Workshop 2009 activity, an event currently taking place in Taipei, and discussed with the audience on how to view the concept of share. Shen Yi, a participating artist also shared her opinions on “remix” as an approach of authoring, and on the importance of share to young artists. The artists strongly recognized the concept of “Remix and Share”, which they believed to be an embodiment of the vigor of contemporary art communities in China.

Legal Lead of CC Hong Kong (CCHK), Professor Li Yahong from University of Hong Kong introduced the general situation of CCHK. . Project team member of CC Australia, Mr. Sampsung Shi introduced the development of CC Australia in 2009, and shared with the participants their experiences In the end, Ms. He Xiaolin of CC China Mainland introduced the local project’s promotional activities and achievements since the release of CC China Mainland version in 2006. In this occasion, guests, artists and other participants were coming from various regions and having different professional background; their brainstorm has perfectly illustrated one of CC’s principles: Public Participation. Professor Wang Chunyan addressed that CC China Mainland will continue to organize activities like this forum, and extend to all coverable fields. She welcomed the support of CC China Mainland and promotion of CC’s concept from everyone.

CC Global Birthday Celebration

After that, the project team offered the global birthday party as a surprise to visiting CC supporters. Following the cross-domain forum, CC China Mainland project team invited artists and other participants to dinner. Instead of the Chinese-style dinner party of previous years, the team presented this time a Chinese cuisine buffet. Guests comfortably gathered into several groups, discussing CC and its development while enjoying the dinner. The lights were warm and Christmas tree shone brightly, laughter and applause were heard while kids’ playing around the venue…

All the sudden all lights faded and songs began to be sung: ”Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to CC, Happy Birthday to you…”Then with much enthusiasm, project team member of CC China Mainland, Ms. Liu Ping announced : “Now it is the time for CC’s Global Birthday Party. In the coming week, CC project teams in different time zones of the world will celebrate the 7th anniversary of CC licenses respectively.”

Two fruit birthday cakes, surrounded by volunteers and children, were presented with big letters “Happy 7th Birthday CC” on their top. With applause and blessings, CC China Mainland Project Lead, Professor Wang Chunyan, Professor Li Yahong from University of Hong Kong, Mr. Wu Hong, curator of the exhibition and Professor Tyng-Ruey Chuang from Academia Sinica of Taiwan cut the cake together for all the participants. . Happiness was seen on everyone’s face. Filled with orange light and warm scent of the cake, the venue provided a more harmonious atmosphere to make everyone even happier. We are reason to believe that, with the active participation and warm attention of creators and users, and the help of its affiliate institution, Law School of Renmin University of China and other supporting organizations, Creative Commons China Mainland will continue its path on promoting the open copyright concept, in a more active and innovative manner to improve the legal share and reuse of the society.

Translated by Yang Fei, Photo by Feng Qian and SOS