18 Bronze Men - That Is He
Jin Jiangbo
金江波
Production date
2005
Object Detail
Media
interactive multimedia installation
Measurements
figure 80 x 20 cm
Notes
The original ‘18 Bronzemen’ were formidable martial arts practitioners, monks from the famous Shaolin Temple. It is also the title of a 1976 Kung Fu movie. But in Jin Jiangbo’s 2009 work they represent instead politicians who dominate the media and bedevil our daily lives, from George W. Bush to Vladimir Putin and Fidel Castro. The artist says that he borrowed the name in order to ridicule these global geopolitical heavyweights and the media frenzy their activities generate. The audience is invited to insert acupuncture needles into a plastic human figure, whose body is marked by acupuncture points and the meridians of traditional Chinese medicine. Some of these insertions will trigger sensors that then activate the projector, which will show short animations – cartoon-like representations of these political characters. Thus the human body – Everyman – becomes a passive site for the consumption of globalised politics.
Accession number
2009.035