2023.08.11 Friday 18:00
Location
No.3, Lane 40, Wukang Road, Xuhui District, Shanghai
Performer: Slime Engine
Welcome to the "I am Happy" Bazaar! This unique space gathers the microcosmic landscapes bred by the new consumerism. Here, the logic and order of our desires and emotions are recorded, and a new system of values is in operation. From passionate speeches on WEB3.0 that cross the boundaries of information, to boxing fitness challenging our perception of health in indescribable ways, this realm pushes the limits.
Here, emotional resonance and the exchange value of material possessions carry equal weight. Our joy, enthusiasm, and favorites all enter a unique currency system. The more fervently you embrace something, the greater its value becomes. This reliance on consumption and entertainment for emotional fulfillment reflects both fanatical worship of materialism and compensation for inner emptiness.
This is a world that embraces both participants and bystanders, where everyone can find his or her place on an invisible coordinate system. There are no predetermined paths, and we will neither force nor hinder your choices. You can follow your own preferences and carve your own path. Whether you choose to participate or question, it is up to you to decide. But regardless, your decisions will become part of this market. Like an act of rebellion, it is difficult to pinpoint the exact goals and motivations behind it.
Lastly, while immersing ourselves in it, we must maintain a clear mind and perceive the profound impact of new consumerism on our inner selves in the era of virtual reality, and that's what we'll really get out of this bazaar.
So, enjoy the game, and let us embark on this journey filled with surprises and depth!
Slime Engine was founded in 2017, an online platform organization that utilizes the virtual world which is not limited by time and space, to develop unprecedented forms of art, exhibition and experience.
Slime Engine excels at integrating art, as well as interspersing and placing art in everyday experience. Their practice is based on parody and reconstruction of the existing reality, creating a new reality with integrated collage aesthetics, as a way to provide a critical response to the structure and order of the current world.
VORTEX, launched by the MACA in Shanghai in 2022, is an art and cultural salon in the form of lecture performances occurring once or twice every month. The programme calls for non-institutionalised artistic and academic production in which contemporary art practitioners and scholars get to explore cross-disciplinarily the issues of the macro or micro, the global or local, the collective or individual. VORTEX, hence, is where you spin in the whirlpool of spontaneous whims and intuitive approaches represented by individual research and enquiries. Being present here at VORTEX, you are experiencing versatile forms of lecture performances that experiment with new mechanisms and methodologies.
Slime Engine: I am Happy（Review）
