
People's Limbo in RMB City
2009 · 20m · Animation · Fantasy
Cao Fei explores a virtual metropolis within the online platform Second Life. The work blends real and fictional elements of Chinese identity and urbanism to comment on capitalism and development in the aftermath of the global financial crisis. Marxist iconography intersects with modern corporate structures, creating a dystopian yet whimsical reflection on 21st-century economic realities.
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2007 · ★ 6
Cao Fei recorded her experiences within the online social platform Second Life. The result is a wistful, surreal vision of an alternative reality sprung from the pop culture fantasies and hyper-consumerism of contemporary urban China, while also trying to transcend its real-life limitations. It can be seen as an answer to the challenge posed by River Elegy: how to envision a new Chinese destiny founded on principles of individuality, creativity, discovery, and freedom. The film also reflects the contemporary condition of the virtual supplanting our experience of the real.
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