Second presentation from our MoMA unit...featuring work by Feng Mengbo, GSAPP's Million Dollar Blocks Cai Guo-Qiang, and Camille Henrot

1. Incarceration or Video Games?

2. Feng Mengbo
Long March: Restart
2008
Custom video game
software and wireless
game controller
KenKen: Animation is an
art in itself.
JoJO: The setting and
characters are designed
like a work of art.
Bri: Art tells a visual
story, so do video games.
Michelle: the process of
making a game is like
making a work of art.

3. Feng Mengbo
Long March: Restart
2008
Custom video game
software and wireless
game controller
PT: A person has a vision
that they need to make
visible into a reality.
AYY: Requires web
design,
Ray: Art passes on a
message…video games
do that!

4. Feng Mengbo
Long March: Restart
2008
Custom video game
software and wireless
game controller
• Ayy: The Long March was something that happened in
China…there’s a little hat with a star…reminds me of communist
China.
• Kara: Sickle and Hammer communist symbol for the Soviet Union
(USSR)
• Guzzzy: Mario star, references to China and the Red army. But I’m
confused by the coca-cola cans being used as weapons against
monsters.
• Arvin: The song is like a playful version of the Chinese national
anthem. (annoying, scary, flamboyant, frenetic.
• Nawal: The video game looks similar to popular Nintendo games
(mario) or Sonic (Sega)
• Nyle: Seems like this game uses some propagandistic imagery.

5. Feng Mengbo
Long March: Restart
2008
Custom video game
software and wireless
game controller
• Kai: Noticing some communist propaganda. Red Army, Red book,
Soviet Union hammer and sickle. And also Super Mario imagery.
• Tae: I had a hard time following what the purpose of the game was
and also the Concept.
• Brian: The purpose is to defeat a boss, or navigate from one
place to another.
• Brian: The player was collecting coins or something and the enemies
aren’t going out of their digital way to harm you. They’re not too
hostile.
• .Myar: The player (worker/captain-communist? Communist-
commando?) uses coca-cola cans as a weapon. And the soundtrack
sounds like a National Anthem (Chinese, but digitized.)
• Len: References Mao Zedong, when he was ruling China.

6. Feng Mengbo
Long March: Restart
2008
Custom video game software and
wireless game controller
Feng Mengbo is known for his longtime
engagement with digital technology. In
the past he has manipulated games like
Quake and Doom. Many put his work in
the “New Media” genre as he is a
professor of New Media at the Central
Academy of Fine Arts in Nanjing China.
Though he dislikes this term, as he feels
it limits creativity.
His work at MoMA, Long March: Restart
is a large-scale interactive video-game
installation that began as a series of
forty-two paintings done in 1993.Examples of the paintings

7. “[My] original intention in
designing the installation,
[was] to enable the
character to move freely
along the stretched scroll.
Because of the vast space
of the exhibition hall and
the intentionally designed
fast pace of the character,
the gamer and the
audience would have to
dash to catch up with the
character.”

8. Feng Mengbo
Long March: Restart
2008
Custom video game software and
wireless game controller
Long March: Restart is no simple game of Wii Tennis. The “Long March”
in Mengbo’s title refers to the massive military retreat of The Chinese
Communist Party’s Red Army, under the command of Mao Zedong and
others, that began in 1934; pursued by the Chinese Nationalist Party,
the Red Army traveled over 8,000 miles in 370 days, covering some of
the worst terrain in China. Mao’s firm leadership throughout the Long
March sealed his fate as China’s leader for decades to follow.

9. Feng Mengbo
Long March: Restart
2008
Custom video game software and
wireless game controller
Lifting Imagery from classic
games like Street Fighter II and
Super Mario Bros, along with
propaganda motifs from
Communist China and Socialist
Realist history painting, or Cold
War science-fiction characters,
Feng invites you to direct a Red
Army Soldier via a wireless X-
box controller to sweep across
China and combat the various
enemies by throwing Coca-Cola
grenades.
Motif:
Recurring theme or image in a work

10. "I am not a video game
designer. I always think that
video games are pieces of
art themselves.
Passion is the best motive to
create art. I admire those
heroes who created Chinese
history so my artworks are
created out of pure love for
them."

11. What Social issue(s) is
this artist dealing
with? How do they
raise these issues?
• Joie: It’s easier for us if this piece
is criticizing stuff…cause it would
be more dramatic.
• Taeron: If we don’t have drama in
our lives we’ll just be happy. Who
wants to go through life with no
hardship…living out your
days…just happy. (Jaded-Teen-
Comment Award)
• Kenny: It’s hard to find a single
issue here...because he’s
supporting something here. (It’s
not provoking Joie’s thoughts)
• Jarrell: The work is too
dramatic…there’s soda can
bombs and everything the
character does makes the whole
room rumble and move too
much.

12. What Social issue(s) is
this artist dealing
with? How do they
raise these issues?
• Richard: The coca-cola can has like
an old school 1980s feel to it. It
matches the aesthetic he’s going
for.
• Ray: There’s this idea that he’s
using the west (coca-cola) to
combat…someone/thing?
• Guzzy: Maybe we’re reading way
too deep into this…It’s hard to see
what Mengbo’s intentions are.
• Tina: You know how China censors
media? YEAH! There’s a
censorship of anything that isn’t
pro-Mao.
• Ayy: Maybe this is all a joke?
Mengbo is referencing this history
but it’s not praising or glorifying it.

13. Incarceration or Video Games?
Why do you think most people
chose this?

14. Causes for people
to go to prison…
• Murder
• .Theft
• Breaking and
entering
• Narcotics
• Fraud
• Assault (all
forms)
• Weapons
• Trafficking
• Counterfeiting
• Crossing borders
illegally.
• Selling non-
native reptiles
without a
permit.
• Public offenses
• trespassing

15. Causes for
people to go
to prison…
• Theft
• .Fraud
• Vandalism
• Assault
• Narcotics
• MURDERR
• Harassment
• Bootlegging
• Terrorism

16. Affects of people
going to prison…
• Separation of
family members
• Abuse (physical,
sexual, etc.)
• Social stigma of
having gone to
prison
• Religious revival.
• Paranoid or
depressed outlook
on life. (mental
instabilities)
• Body building
• Everyone reacts
differently to this
experience….and
the surface
doesn’t always
portray the
interior.

17. Affects of
people going
to prison…
• Death
• Solitary
confinement
• Mental
problems
(PTSD, etc)
• Sense of loss
from family
members
• Health
problems
• Social
problems
when you are
released.

18. Million Dollar Blocks
by Graduate School of Architecture,
Planning, and Preservation
GSAPP @Columbia University
The United States currently
has more than 2-million
people locked up in jails and
prisons. A disproportionate
number of them come from
a very few neighborhoods in
the country’s biggest cities.
This project focused on
Phoenix, Wichita, New
Orleans, and New York City.
In many places the
concentration is so dense
that states are spending in
excess of a million dollars a
year to incarcerate the
residents of single city
blocks. These are what we
call “Million Dollar Blocks.”

19. Although prison populations in
New York State have been
dropping for almost a decade,
the burdens of high rates of
migration between prison and
community continue to fall on
just a few neighborhoods in
highly disproportionate ways.
Statistically, prison populations
are concentrated in some of the
city’s poorest neighborhoods,
including parts of Harlem, the
Bronx, East Brooklyn and Central
Queens. Despite the
decommissioning of two state
prisons, none of the savings
have found their way back to
the city or to these
neighborhoods.

20. This trend of imprisonment
may be changing: the City’s
corrections department is
currently involved in a number
of efforts to refocus its
resources to better serve these
neighborhoods.
In one instance of
“grassroots government,” the
City’s Homeless Services
Department and the
Department of Corrections have
pooled resources to find
housing for the many jailees
who are released into
homelessness.
They have defined eleven
neighborhoods to focus their
work, many of which overlap
with the districts showing high
concentrations of prison and jail
admissions.

21. Million Dollar Blocks
by Graduate School of Architecture,
Planning, and Preservation
GSAPP @Columbia University
At MoMA, “million
dollar blocks” looks
specifically at Brooklyn,
where the statistics for
incarceration are very
stark.
When many prisoners
finish their sentence
and are released to
reenter their
communities, roughly
40% do not stay more
than three years before
they are once again
incarcerated.

23. It cost 17 million
dollars to imprison
109 people from
these 17 blocks in
2003.

24. Many of
these
individuals
end up in one
of the 70
prisons in
upstate NY

26. Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation
GSAPP @ Columbia University
Specifically, this is
part of the
Spatial Information
Design Lab
By artists…
Laura Kurgan
Eric Cadora
David Reinfurt
And Sarah Williams

27. MoMA trip is 65% filled up
Studio Art students are now invited.
GET THOSE PERMISSION SLIPS BACK ASAP!

28. The Spatial Information Design
Lab found that prisoners often
come from urban neighborhoods
plagued by poverty, homelessness,
an intense policing towards
communities of color.
In the past, governors have
combatted these trends by
increasing affordable public
housing (through bulldozing slums
and tenements) and more recently
through real-estate gentrification.
Neither of these solutions have
churned visible results…but there is
now a real interest in re-investing
in these neighborhoods, to pay less
money up front than to imprison
people afterwards.
How would YOU invest
this money?
• Jojo: Invest money in SAFER prisons
that avoid traumatic experiences.
• Joiearon: More rehabilitation
services in prisons that provide
educational resources. Also better
services for guards.
– Brianna: Educational services already
exist. More money should be spent on
PREVENTATIVE measures.
• Jeansei: More after school programs
for at-risk kids. Maybe teach people
how to adapt to new aspects of
society.
• Taeron: Socially we tend to favor
people who are not ex-convicts…it
“seems” safer.
• Joie: Ex cons have trouble getting
jobs, getting paid…and many end up
becoming criminals just to get by.
Our social stigmas keep them from
moving forward.
• Ruhith: Racial problems add to this
whole heap.

29. The Spatial Information Design
Lab found that prisoners often
come from urban neighborhoods
plagued by poverty, homelessness,
an intense policing towards
communities of color.
In the past, governors have
combatted these trends by
increasing affordable public
housing (through bulldozing slums
and tenements) and more recently
through real-estate gentrification.
Neither of these solutions have
churned visible results…but there is
now a real interest in re-investing
in these neighborhoods, to pay less
money up front than to imprison
people afterwards.
How would YOU invest
this money?
• .Nyle/Zen: Provide housing for ex-
convicts as SOON as they are
released.
– People have to find it in themselves to
not be afraid of ex convicts. People are
still human.
• .TinArvin: We should make more
educational outreach programs in
these neighborhoods.
• RaymAbby: Ex convicts should be
able to get training in fields so they
can get jobs
• PT: The stigmas that surround ex
convicts is difficult to get rid of.
• Nawal: Every ex-con is
different….there’s no single cure-all
for this.
• KARA: What does this all mean for
people who were wrongly convicted.

30. FINAL
COMMENTS
AND
QUESTIONS
FOR THE
GSAPP
PROGRAM AT
COLUMBIA??

31. How can you use something
destructive to make something
creative?
• Ken: Hammers can be destructive…but you can use it
to make new things too.
• Michelle: What if we made a bomb that explodes
flowers??
• Taeron: disregarding ideas can be destructive…by
destroying one’s potential.
• Brian: Fireworks!! It’s like beauty and
destruction…when something explodes it could create
something beautiful.
• Myar: This reminds me of Felix Gonzalez-
Torres…making something beautiful from his lost love
and the AIDS epidemic.

32. How can you use something
destructive to make something
creative?
• Sof: You can use knives to carve out sculptures.
• PT: You can use FIRE to make artistic smokey things (Fumage)
• Raph: Underwater volcanoes form new islands.
– Artie: Volcanoes erupt and cause destruction. But sometimes that helps
the environment (thinks this is true)
• Ayy: on “How it’s Made” you can fire a gun and make a portrait
with the bullet holes.
• Guzzy: Some “artist” on facebook was using firecrackers to make
paintings. A bit of strategic placement
• Nyle: Criticism can be used to make oneself better.
• Ray: Whenever you disrupt something you create something new.
If I break a table in half….you could turn it into a chair.
• Justin: People use hammers to build stuff…but those can also be
used to destroy things.

33. Cai Guo-
Qiang
Gunpowder
drawings

34. Cai Guo-Qiang
Cai Guo-Qiang was born in 1957
in Quanzhou City, Fujian
Province, China. He was trained
in stage design at the Shanghai
Theater Academy, and his work
has since crossed multiple
mediums within art, including
drawing, installation, video and
performance art. While living in
Japan from 1986 to 1995, he
explored the properties of
gunpowder in his drawings, an
inquiry that eventually led to his
experimentation with explosives
on a massive scale and to the
development of his signature
explosion events.
Gunpowder drawings
www.caiguoqiang.com

35. Cai Guo-Qiang
For the concepts of his artwork, Cai Guo-Qiang draws upon
Eastern philosophy and contemporary social issues. His work
and events aim to establish an exchange between viewers and
the larger universe around them, utilizing a site-specific
approach to culture and history.
www.caiguoqiang.com
Homeland
2013
Gunpowder drawing
…M
ma
will
Ken
pro
soc
Giss
me
just
“en
Bria
des
thin

36. P7
The work relates to chaos but
it’s controlled to a certain
extent.
It looks like a controlled
chaos, different from a
natural chaos that doesn’t
mean to be destructive.
Gunpowder relates to the
history of china…it’s a
material that could lead to
self destruction.
Yanshui fireworks festival,
Taiwan
p8
…Myar:this means the
art is made for the
location where it will
end up.
Ken: He uses his art to
provoke conversation
about social issues
and history.
Gissell: Maybe a
deeper meaning to
this? Probably not just
a cool material to
“entertain”
Brian: the end result
of destruction is to
make you think.

37. Cai Guo Qiang
“Personally, I like some
things to be accidental and
hard to control. Uncertainty
has a certain allure to me.”

38. Cai Guo Qiang
Sky Ladder
2015
In the early morning hours
of June 15, Cai Guo-Qiang
took an ambitious new step
in his pyrotechnic artwork.
A huge white helium
balloon slowly ascended
into the sky above
Quanzhou, China.
Attached to the ballon was
a 500-meter long ladder
coated completely with
quick burning fuses and
gold fireworks…

39. Cai Guo Qiang

40. Cai Guo Qiang
Sky Ladder
2015
Behind Sky Ladder lies a clear childhood dream of mine. Despite
all life’s twists and turns, I have always been determined to
realize it. My earlier proposals were either more abstract or
ceremonial. Sky Ladder today is tender, and touches my heart
deeply: it carries affection for my hometown, my relatives and
my friends. In contrast to my other attempts, which set the
ignition time at dusk, this time the ladder rose toward the
morning sun, carrying hope. For me, this not only means a return
but also the start of a new journey.

41. Cai Guo-Qiang
Inopportune: Stage
One
Cars (Ford Taurus),
lighting tubes 2004
at the Guggenheim

42. Cai Guo-Qiang
Inopportune: Stage One
Cars (Ford Taurus), lighting tubes 2004
at Mass MoCA

43. videos
• Inopportune:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z11MZg0
d3V4
• Interview:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ViVEUa9
bn8w

44. Cai Guo Qiang
Borrowing Your Enemy's Arrows
1998 mixed media

45. Cai Guo Qiang
Borrowing Your Enemy's Arrows
1998 mixed media
The title references a text from the
third century (Sanguozhi) in which
the general Zhuge Liang, facing an
imminent attack from the enemy,
manages to replenish a depleted
store of arrows. According to legend,
Zhuge Liang tricked the enemy by
sailing across the Yangtze river
through the thick mist of early dawn
with an army of straw men, while his
soldiers remained behind yelling and
beating on drums. Mistaking the
pandemonium for a surprise attack,
the enemy showered the decoys
with volleys of arrows. Thus the
general returned triumphantly with
a freshly captured store of
weapons.

46. Cai Guo Qiang
Borrowing Your Enemy's Arrows
1998 mixed media
Borrowing Your Enemy's Arrows
delivers a timeless message rooted
in Chinese philosophy. Built on the
skeleton of an old fishing boat
excavated near Cai's birthplace, the
sculpture, suspended aboveground,
is pierced with 3,000 made-in-China
arrows and flies the national flag.
Surreptitiously gathering strength
from one's opponent is also a
strategic principle in martial arts.

47. What Social issue(s) is
this artist dealing
with? How do they
raise these issues?
Nyle: He deals with eastern
philosophy. Using gunpowder and
fireworks as an Asian referecne.
• Arvin: Using something that is
kind of dangerous but it has a
positive impact in the world. Sky
ladder would be example, it’s
destructive but beautiful.
• Guzzy: He’s saying that it’s okay to
be spontaneous…just because
things don’t go as planned doesn’t
mean that things are ruined.
• Yet we still try to control that
chaos.
• Nawal: People in Society don’t
prefer to be spontaneous due to
social conformity constraints.

48. What Social issue(s) is
this artist dealing
with? How do they
raise these issues?
• Kenny: Seeing it in person helps to
understand how the sculpture works
more, it helps you notice the details
• Rasha: Reminds me of positive and
fun stuff, but conveyed in a deeper
meaning.
• Lensei: his work exceed our
expectations on what “destructive”
means, it makes us interpret the
word differently.
• Ruhith: made me reminiscent of fun
past experiences. NOSTALIGIA! .
• Brian: His work shows us that
destruction and chaos aren’t
necessarily bad.
• Gissell: Uses the destructive objects
and ideas as a positive.
• Myar: Even though there’s
destruction and chaos, you can still
create something beautiful from it.
It’s HOPEFUL.

49. Creation Myths
What are they? What are examples of
them?• Mythologies…Greek goddesses and gods and how they created Earth.
• Waaay back in the day, how humans came to be, and how the world
came to be. Some folks think this is only polytheistic, but it extends to
monotheistic religions too.
• Agnostics (Agnosticism) (I’m not really sure…)
• Atheists: Science and the power of human achievement! Big bang
theory. “we are all stardust.”
• Christianity (and other Abrahamic faiths) there’s Genesis and the
Garden of Eden
• Buddhism: Goddess called Nua, she brought 8 or 9 stones and used
them to make the 5 elements of earth…and then made more gods out
of clay and they had babies and they had more babies!
• Ancient Egypt: Ra, the god of the sun created life. In the beginning
there was only water, a chaos of churning, bubbling water, this the
Egyptians called Nu or Nun. It was out of Nu that everything began.

50. Creation Myths Religion
What are they? What are examples of them?
• Greek mythology: The Titans created the Gods and
Goddesses…they revolted….gave form to the world and humans…
• Christianity (and other Abrahamic faiths (Judaism, Islam): Genesis
(God creates the world in 6 days and rests on the 7th) In the
beginning there was darkness…and god made light. And there was
light. And god saw it was good.” Garden of Eden.
• Atheists/ Science folks: The Big Bang Theory / organic
biology/evolution
• Agnostics : Um…. I’m not really sure here.
• Deism: The belief that God has created the universe but remains
apart from it and permits his creation to administer itself through
natural laws. (dictionary.com)
• Hinduism, Buddhism, Animism, Paganism, Humanism, and all
those other ISMs.

51. Creation Myths
What are they? What are examples of
them?
• Muscogee (Creek) Native Americans (in
southeastern present-day USA) believed that
at one point the whole world was underwater,
and the only land was a great mountain—
Nunne Chaha. This mountain, home of
Esaugetuh Emissee (the master of breath)
who used the mud and clay from around his
home to make the first men.

52. Camille Henrot Grosse Fatigue
2013 Video, 13 min
Creation myths
--god
--earth
--water
In the beginning there was no earth, no water – nothing. There was a single hill called Nunne Chaha.
In the beginning everything was dead.

53. Camille Henrot Grosse Fatigue
2013 Video, 13 min
Creation myths
--god
--earth
--water
In the beginning there was nothing; nothing at all. No light, no life, no
movement no breath.

54. Camille Henrot Grosse Fatigue
2013 Video, 13 min
Creation myths
--god
--earth
--water
In the beginning there was an immense unit of energy.
In the beginning there was nothing but shadow and only darkness and water and
the great god Bumba.

55. Camille Henrot Grosse Fatigue
2013 Video, 13 min
Creation myths
--god
--earth
--water
In the beginning were quantum fluctuations. Video!

56. Video reactions…p8
• Ruhith: I heard different variations of “IN the
beginning…” to the point where I started to zone-out.
• Gissell: I got really overwhelmed by the pictures.
They’re like pop up ads, distracting and covering other
images that you WANT to see.
• Kenny: At one point the words didn’t correspond to the
images. (disparity between audio and video)
• Brian: My brain started to go home….like I was being
brainwashed.
• Joie: Kind of like one of those ‘How-To Basic’ videos but
crazy and I kept questioning “where is this going?!” it’s
just too much.
• Kevin: WHAT THE HECK AM I WATCHING?
• Brianna: Trying to focus…but some of this stuff just
doesn’t seem to make sense to me.

57. Video reactions…p7
• Nyle: It’s a lot to process. Reminds me of Mr. Brainwash’s LIFE REMOTE
CONTROL
• PT: The voice seems familiar. It’s a lot to take in…you’re trying to look at one
video, but then another pops up and you’re trying to understand the words
and put pictures together.
• Ay: Overwhelming, the beats, the sounds, the images…and then it gets quiet…
• Ray: the voice feels like he’s talking AT you.
• Alannis: It’s like a complicated poem. And the imagery is hypnotizing, and you
expect there to be more depth to the images than just their surface.
• Zenzi: the narrator’s voice was repetitive and strong…and it didn’t seem like
the images connected with the words.
• Jakara: I’m finding that there were some connections between the words and
images.
• Justin PC: The narrator said so much and I understood so little that it made me
feel stupid.
• Tina: The music went so well with the video…maybe we’re not supposed to
understand every word he’s saying but we can understand HOW he’s saying
that.
• Guzzy: all this seems to connect to the different creation myths…and they all
kind of sound like one story when you put them all together…but it’s hard to
process them all like that.

58. “For me there is no opposition between myth and
science. Science originates in faith and belief.
What’s more, mythological foundations have very
often been used to elaborate theories that go on
to be scientifically verified later. Belief is often at
the origin of an intuition that then becomes a
physical or scientific law.
There is, however an opposition and an
articulation that I found interesting…it’s in the
relationship between oral culture and written
culture. Western written culture has built its way
of working on destruction…there is a need to kill
things to conserve them as opposed to a culture
that does not set things in stone, but sustains itself
orally. Nowadays we have the preconception that
oral cultures are those that have experienced the
greatest loss and alteration. But I’m not sure that’s
true in the long term.”
The Relentless Earth
2014
The New Museum, NYC

59. What Social
issue(s) is this
artist dealing
with? How does
she raise these
issues?
• Kenny: How different religions
correlate to each other and how
they sometimes deviate from one
another. How they can all be seen
as part of one thing.
• Jean: It’s all these believes that
have been said to be ‘true’ and
seeing how they interact and how
they’re compatible.
• Ruhith: Trying to explain where the
world came from…so many of
these ideas are jumbled up
together.
• Myar: There isn’t just one answer
to how the world was created. All
myths are valid.

60. How would you
describe this
artist??
• Taeron: She seems confident
discussing the work. doesn’t seem
‘awkward’.
• Myar: It’s interesting that she
worked with this actor and used
multiple beliefs to convey a sense
of desperation for understanding.
• Kenny: Seems like she controlled a
lot in this whole process.
• Ruhith: The actual piece of video
artwork seemed so jumbled, but
since that’s her intention, ….to be
searching for the truth.
• Brianna: The video is trying to get
EVERYONE’S story in…so that
nobody is ‘wrong’ or excluded…but
also nobody gets to be ‘right.’

61. What Social
issue(s) is this
artist dealing
with? How does
she raise these
issues?
Jakara: She uses a diverse number of
creation myths that are complex even
though it’s shown with simple
images/videos.
Artie:The whole narrative that the speaker
tells us seems to relate to all these
different beliefs being related to each
other.
Ardi: the images seem to relate to how
science and religion are related...but it’s so
fast paced, you need to stay focused to get
it.
Ray: New technology sometimes displaces
religion
Ay: This happens through the acquisition
of knowledge.
RD: Nah son, NAHHH, technology can
ENHANCE religion!