The Making of… “They Don’t Call It Shanglow”

If you suffer from vertigo or fear of heights this artwork -  “They Don’t Call It Shanglow” - may be phobia-inducing. Panoramas and skylines, photographed in black and white, and populated with oversized LED animations, are a signature of the recent work of Liu Dao. We live in a global city with one of the world’s most photographed skylines. How could we resist the temptation to foreground the Pudong skyline in our work? It is a jewel in the city’s crown and a bold, futuristic comeback to the stately heritage buildings that across the river line the historic Bund waterfront.

Performing artist Wei Wei negotiates the green screen version of the Pudong skyline during the making of “They Don’t Call It Shanglow”.

For this particular artwork Liu Dao recruited Wei Wei, a performing artist who has appeared in many of our videos and LED animations – dressed in overalls filled with mock outrage, lying on the deck of a boat, flitting across the sky – literally too many artworks to mention. When the directions come from the set during a shoot, Wei Wei is generally unfazed.

The making of the animation for “They Don’t Call It Shanglow” was almost a walk in the park – except Wei Wei had to negotiate a green-screen set piece – an irregular flight of steps built to mirror the Pudong skyline – dressed in a tight silk qipao while twirling a parasol. As you do!

First we had to map the skyline. Then our builders had to recreate the skyline in three dimensions. Liu Dao’s Anto Lau was the art director/choreographer for the shoot.

Art director and choreographer Anto Lau gives performer Wei Wei some instruction during the photoshoot for “They Don’t Call It Shanglow”.

The panorama is a Giclée print onto light photographic paper, so light that our LED animations can be seen clearly from behind. Generally, lightly antiqued rice paper gives the right degree of opacity and translucence, enough opacity to conceal the inner workings of an LED panel and enough translucence to let the animation shine through. Like Wei Wei’s performance, it’s a balancing act.

This image of course brings to mind any of the King Kong or Godzilla films, or more likely the B-grade sci-fi movie Attack of the 50 Foot Woman (1958).

The poster from the 1958 film “Attack of the 50 Foot Woman”, beloved of macrophiles everywhere.

The much-copied poster is more highly-regarded than the low-budget film, which features a neglected heiress who morphs into a giantess after an undisclosed close encounter with an alien in the desert! (The giantess fetish is a common form of macrophilia).

The finished artwork, “They Don’t Call It Shanglow”.

In her accompanying text Liu Dao wordsmith Kathleen McCampbell imagined a scenario that mixes nostalgia with a fear of ‘progress’ (prosophobia) and an almost existential sense of loss. In her reckoning the qipao-wearing Wei Wei is stumbling across the Pudong skyline searching for the vanishing old city, buried under concrete. For this character the most tangible remnants of the old Shanghai are specks of dust that she collects in jars to scatter like ashes in a lonely morning ritual.

This city grew so fast fast fast. It grows up. It grows out. It grows down. It grows on top of layers and layers of people like me. They tell me my qipao is not as fashionable as the latest looky-loos. They whisper that hamburgers are tastier than xiaolongbao. The dust of the old city is trekked into glittering skyscrapers and retail stores, and I am the only one who does not want to sweep it away. Each evening, I move silently through the crowded old lanes and fill tiny jars with the dust of old Shanghai. I keep the jars for a little while, just to let them know they are loved. When the dust knows that it is not forgotten, I take it on a journey to that flashing monster across the river, the one that that just yesterday crouched on top of rolling fields and spat out sandwich chains. I climb up towers built with steel and greed, and do what I do each morning. I take my jars of dust and scatter their contents on the roofs of the new Shanghai. I watch it settle into cracks and make little piles on top of neon signs. This city grows fast, but I will not let the new grind the old into oblivion.