The Chinese Utopia/Dystopia Box
Inspiration
This was my final project for CHINA 154Q: Utopia and Dystopia in Chinese Literature and Culture. We have discussed how utopia and dystopia are conceived in Chinese literature and cultural and political discourse. One of the readings was Richard Dyer's Entertainment and Utopia, which outlines five aspects of utopia in Broadway musicals. I decided to use these five aspects as the framework to analyze how China, Chinese thinking, society and culture can be seen as both utopic and dystopic.
The Box
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Because there are five aspects of utopia in Dyer’s essay, I chose to use a box with five squares as sides and a lid as the organizational structure of my piece. When the lid is lifted, the four sides fall outwards, showing the full utopia “landscape.” Each side is made from multiple layers and different interactive elements, for example, a pull-out tab, a horizontal double slider card, pockets, etc. When viewed from above, without moving the layers and the interactive elements, each side shows a photo collage that corresponds with an aspect of utopia. However, if one lifts the layer and interacts with the elements, other photos will appear, showing how that utopic aspect can become dystopic.
I intend for this mechanism to reflect the connection between our expectations of utopia and dystopia. While we strive towards utopia, it is easy for the conception to shatter the moment we interact with it, turning the utopia into dystopia. Additionally, the multiple layers and the different elements that one can use to uncover the dystopia within the utopia is analogical to how there are multiple ways a utopia can become a dystopia, while there is only one way to achieve utopia (by viewing it from above). The very process of uncovering the box itself is suggestive of opening a Pandora box that promises “utopia.” However, when one opens the box and is presented with the representation of utopia, one soon realizes that utopia is very fragile and easily turns dystopic. |
The Elements: Energy
Dyer’s explanation of this aspect as capacity and potential seems to map very well onto the great economic growth that China is experiencing. For the utopia, I chose photos that represent the economic potential of China: modern cities with skyscrapers and people at work. For the dystopia, I focus on two aspects that can result from this “energy” of economic growth of this “energy” of economic growth. Firstly, the pollution in China is one of the worst in the world. Second is the potential of treating workers as “cogs in a machine,” prioritizing efficiency rather than treating them as individuals. I took some quotes from the story The Fish of Lijiang by Chen Qiufan to illustrate this point, because the time sense compression therapy that the protagonist of the story experiences is also a result of companies wanting to be as efficient as possible for more economic gains.
The Elements: Abundance
Dyer’s explanation of this aspect is the enjoyment of sensual materials and lack of concern about scarcity, and I interpret this to be the growing wealth in China. The utopia conception features photos of opulence and rich people in China. The dystopia occurs when the growing wealth is accompanied by a widening gap between the rich and the poor. Income inequality, while on a slight decrease, is still high in China. I aim to show the inequality by using photos that contrast the rich and the poor, as well as quotes from Hao Jingfang's Folding Beijing, a story in which the rich and the poor are divided by how much time they get to stay awake and live. I also used a quote from Chen Quifan's The Fish of Lijiang that talks about how time works differently for different social classes. While the quote in the story’s context could refer directly to the different time sense therapies different classes go through, I find it powerful as a metaphor about how different social classes perceive time, which is another way to explore the income divide.
The Elements: Intensity
Dyer explains this to mean feeling intense and authentic emotions. For the utopia, I took inspiration from the characters in Chen Quifan's The Fish of Lijiang and created a photo collage that represents authentic romantic feelings. The background was inspired from Tao Yuanming's The Peach Blossom Spring to suggest a perfect utopia. I explored two aspects of how this could turn into a dystopia. Firstly, wanting to achieve intense and authentic emotions can be interpreted to be linked to the consumption of drugs and alcohol in China. Secondly, considering how the end of The Fish of Lijiang reveals that the two characters are together simply because the authorities have deemed them compatible, I wanted to show the possibility of romantic relationships being socially engineered. I represented this in the piece through the puppet-master hand on the pull-out tab, and quotes from The Fish of Lijiang and Ma Boyong's City of Silence.
The Elements: Transparency
I want to focus on Dyer’s interpretation of this aspect that is related to sincerity in relationships. The utopia is shown through a photo collage showing different types of positive human relationships: between coworkers, between family members, between the young and the elderly (inspired by Xia Jia's Tongtong’s Summer), etc. The dystopia explores how the need for “sincerity” can be taken to demand people to be completely transparent in their communications through censorship. I took inspiration from Ma Boyong's City of Silence to make the list of “dangerous words” and chose the photo of a building with multiple satellite dishes to represent the listening devices that monitor language use in the story. Another dystopic concept is the social credit system that constantly monitors people. These demands in the name of “transparency” force people to put on a “fake” front to others, something we saw in the Black Mirror episode Nose Dive.
The Elements: Community
Dyer’s explanation of this concept is a sense of belonging and togetherness. I want to focus on the conception of a “united” China. The utopia is shown through photos of people holding Chinese flags and celebrating Chinese holidays. The dystopia is how beneath these presentations of unity, China still suffers from gender, ethnic and regional discrimination and inequality, among other social separations. The horizontal steps on the staircase show propaganda posters that display Chinese unity, and the vertical steps show representatives of the different forms of discrimination in China: women in a march for women’s rights against domestic violence and a Uyghur girl, a minority that is discriminated against in China.
Final Thoughts
It was quite interesting to break down the stories in terms of Dyer’s five utopic aspects and their dystopic corruption. While not all stories can be broken down into the five aspects of utopia proposed by Dyer, I think the fact that some aspects of utopia and dystopia as conceived by Dyer occur together in other narratives beyond Broadway musicals means that the framework can still be used to think about utopia and dystopia in general. This leaves open the possibility that these aspects (or at least some interpretations of them) could be universal.
The process of working on this piece and considering what could corrupt the utopia also reminded me of an idea in David Wang’s essay Panglossian Dream and Dark Consciousness, about how we should always examine utopic representations to look for the “dark consciousness.” However, rather than a criticism of China and Chinese culture, I intend for this piece to show how utopic representations, regardless of what nation or community they come from, carry in themselves the potential of dystopia, when the aspects of utopia go wrong. I think this is a useful way to critically analyze utopian rhetorics (for example, in politics) – by considering potential ways the proposed utopia can become dystopia.
The process of working on this piece and considering what could corrupt the utopia also reminded me of an idea in David Wang’s essay Panglossian Dream and Dark Consciousness, about how we should always examine utopic representations to look for the “dark consciousness.” However, rather than a criticism of China and Chinese culture, I intend for this piece to show how utopic representations, regardless of what nation or community they come from, carry in themselves the potential of dystopia, when the aspects of utopia go wrong. I think this is a useful way to critically analyze utopian rhetorics (for example, in politics) – by considering potential ways the proposed utopia can become dystopia.