Water: Standard Version from the Cihai Dictionary水──《辭海》標準版
1991
This video features Xing Zhibin—a prominent newsreader at China’s state-run television broadcaster in the 1980s and 1990s—behind a microphone in a studio. Dressed in an orange jacket, she sits against an indigo backdrop, reading aloud definitions of terms and phrases beginning with the Chinese word for ‘water’ from a dictionary. She speaks calmly and clearly, as if she were delivering the news. Famously, Xing delivered government announcements during the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests. In Zhang Peili’s video, Xing’s measured delivery appears incongruous with the content. The artist appropriates the format and tone of state-run television to question the state’s power over language and the means of communication. Zhang is recognised as a pioneer of video art and new media. He uses the time-based nature of video to explore issues of monotony, repetition, and control.
Zhang Peili (born 1957, Hangzhou) graduated from the Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts, Hangzhou, in 1984 with a degree in oil painting, and previously served as Dean of the New Media Department at the same institution, later renamed China Academy of Art. He was a founding member of the Pond Society and a prominent figure of the avant-garde movement in Hangzhou in the 1980s. Primarily working in video, photography, and new media, his work acts as a form of protest to reveal the forces that shape Chinese society and the lives of its citizens. Zhang lives and works in Hangzhou.