The exhibition is one of several key Cultural Olympic events running until early July. It encompasses some 40 works by over 100 established and emerging new media artists from 30 countries and regions.
"This exhibition gives the general audience a concrete idea of what new media art means, and also brings them surprises and fun."
Arranged around the four distinct yet interrelated themes - Beyond Body, Emotive Digital, Recombinant Reality and Here, There and Everywhere, the exhibition addresses such issues as human identity; the relationship between man and technology; and art and technology in the new century, says Zhang Ga, a respected new media researcher and curator of the mammoth exhibition.
In the Beyond Body category is an interactive installation by Chinese artist Du Zhenjun, which confronts visitors with the ultimately macabre scenario.
It consists of a large screen to which half a table is affixed, projecting the ethos of an anatomy class. Eight doctors and one lifeless, prone body, all of identical appearance, play a game with visitors.
When a viewer approaches the screen, his or her presence is detected and he or she is invited to become an actor in the class. The doctors move in from the background and form a semi circle around the table in the foreground.
As long as the viewer remains where he or she is, the eight doctors continue to gaze at him or her in a clinically objective manner, as they did at the dead body. If the visitor moves away, the eight doctors also withdraw and return to the shadowy background of the animation.
One of the exhibits in the Emotive Digital category created by a group of Swiss artists titled Etoy has accommodated the specter of death within the digital age.
The artists have presented their Mission Eternity in a standard 20-ft shipping container carrying human mortal remains, concrete and LED matrix monitored by Linux software.
Net art pioneers Etoy, who have been developing Mission Eternity since 2005, present their latest project as the cult of the dead in the digital age of information technology. Mission Eternity deals with existential topics, such as the conservation and loss of memory, the future, the present and the past, and life and death. These topics are provocatively and brazenly transposed to the age of digital communication and information technologies.
New media artwork hit a cultural dimension in the form of a paper banknote printed with Chinese characters. It was handed by Etoy members to Chinese viewers, which is an aspect of rural burial rituals.
Dutch artist Marnix de Nijs actualized his impression of a rapidly changing Beijing in Beijing Accelerator, an interactive installation that visitors wait in line to sit inside and experience a breath-taking video game.
South Korean artist Kichul Kim's Sound Drawing in the Emotive Digital category is inundated with curious visitors drawing with a graphite pen that "sings" as it produced images.
One of the most eye-catching items in the Here, There and Everywhere category is Newscocoons.
