Wang: This years Shanghai Biennale had two main themes, the first was 'Cultural Fusion,' the second was 'Urban Future.' But in fact the Biennale did not successfully realize the 'Urban Future' theme and no influential works or debate conclusions related to urban issues came out of it. Whereas the Shanghai 'Linear Cities' group has always prioritized these issues and has produced relatively interesting works related to city problems. At the time you formed the 'Linear Cities' group, what were your original ideas?

Ni: The 'Linear Cities' group was formed in 1997, the other member, Wang Jiahao, is an architect. At the time I was mainly making conceptual art, one series dealt with the contemporary implications of artistic ontology, and the so-called borderline between 'art' and 'not art.' The series touched on various issues including language, society, culture and economy, and could also not avoid urban issues closely related to the development of modern civilization, because art originates from 'expression' and 'exchange', and cities were also formed on the basis of 'exchange'. The earliest prototype cities were built on the 'market' concept, which then extended to the concept of a 'residential community.' Wang Jiahao mainly uses architecture as a starting point to consider residential space, and from residential space extends to the concept of 'exchange', and so the issues we dealt with came together. Working as a group we also expressed another side of the exchanges and bland traditions we regard as important, and the characteristics of the individualization process.When researching several contemporary issues, we are both of the opinion that the conceptual borders of art in it's present state of development are becoming increasingly blurred, it is already impossible to find a true dividing line between 'art' and 'not art', and the so-called 'art' is only defined by the 'art system' made up of museums, critics, curators and so on. This art system is like an empty shell, when something is put inside it is then dignified with the title of 'art', and art events such as Biennials and documentary exhibitions use this approach to go round in cycles. But in actual fact art is more than the definitions of the system, it is a dynamic, undefined concept. At a symposium held in Germany on the subject of urban problems, some artists and critics suggested that modern cities should set up 'art spaces', which I immediately countered, asking, 'What is an art space? Ruins, a park, or something else?' I believe that as far as the present day is concerned, 'More artistic is actually more traditional', and so their 'art spaces' would be more like 'return to the past spaces'. And so-called contemporary art is in reality a sort of spirit, traces of which can be found in cities, architectural spaces, communication, and the transmission process of contemporary media, but which cannot be pinned down. 

Wang: In the earliest works produced by your group, the 'Linear Cities' series, I notice that you imbue the city itself with a brand new concept, that of the Internet. These works lead viewers to consider the plight of human beings and the plight of cities in the new era of the Internet. Could you explain the creative concept behind these works?

Ni: The 'Linear Cities' series expressed a new definition of 'city', namely that the city is not defined by districts and geographical divisions, but is the sum of various statistics or 'city elements' such as population, transport, commerce etc. In the work 'Linear Cities - Making Use of Art' we symbolically used 'artistic involvement' as a statistical element, using various conditions such as the art exhibition, peoples right to exhibit, the exhibition space and the audience to carry out a 'Linear Cites' survey. We took two maps of Shanghai (later this was also done in Berlin) and divided each into 20 square parts. One copy was made into 20 ballot boxes with openings for casting votes, the other copy was used to display a dynamic statistical graph. When audience members came to the door of the exhibition space, we gave them a ballot paper and asked them to insert it into one of the districts on the 'ballot box' map, according to the place that they had come from. Twice a day we counted the ballots, and according to the statistical data arranged the squares of the 'graph' map into a line, thus obtaining a 'Linear City' showing the element of 'artistic involvement. Thus our so-called 'city centre' or (city limits') was not necessarily the geographical centre of the city, but the centre of a statistical 'city element' such as artistic involvement. Also, our graph was dynamic, and in the afternoon was often arranged in a completely different order to the morning. Although this work did not use computers or the Internet (because of the restrictions of the exhibition space), it had already touched upon this concept. The charts of statistical results arranged on the wall resembled the menu of a web page, and creatively the work was mainly based on ideas to do with the Internet age. Because the development of civilization has placed written language, images and the media by which they are disseminated in an increasingly more important position, our 'understanding' of cities today comes more from the transmission of information and images by the media, and not from first-hand experience, a situation unimaginable in the past. In the Internet age, it is possible that people will know a city mainly through it's 'home page', not from architecture and geographical concepts that make up the 'substantial city'. And a 'home page' is in fact just a menu-style display of text, images or statistical data. In this sense we have a radically different starting point from Koolhaas and other urban designers who have conceived models for future cities. Our city model is completely based on 'personal choice', not on research into architectural or geographical factors. Beginning with a series of 'personal choices' on various city elements, we analysed the dynamic statistics obtained to form a series of city models - the 'Linear Cities' series. With this basis, our future research into architecture will also be correspondingly and essentially altered. 

Wang: Economics, politics and culture are elements that strongly influence architecture and city planning, this is particularly true of the cities of post-colonial Asia. For example the political slogan 'development is the hard truth' has had a big impact on the design and development of China's cities during the 1990s, in particular Shanghai, whose 'higher, faster, newer' pace of development is a sign of the times that reflects the words of authority. Why did you spend so much effort photographing every city 'landscape' that contained the 'development is the hard truth' slogan. Is this action connected to the 'Linear Cities' concept? 

Ni: The changes and developments experienced by cities all have their economic, cultural and political backgrounds, 'Linear Cities' itself does not incorporate these backgrounds, it's just a method of researching city models, but via this method we can expound and research urban issues from an entirely new angle. While in the process of making a statistical survey of the first of our city elements - the concentration of exterior billboards - we discovered that before billboards are leased to an advertiser, they are mostly not blank but are temporarily emblazoned with a quote from Deng Xiaoping, 'development is the hard truth.' This not only shows that the advertising companies are waiting for clients, but also that they use the method of media propaganda to make a powerful wish for social development. If this was an isolated case, it would appear to be done in an offhand manner and not be worth much attention, but the large majority of billboards are like this (the number is greater in Shanghai) which shows that the influence of words has gone far beyond people's ordinary understanding, and has already passed through the collective unconscious into the mass media and the urban environment as a whole, leading and influencing the erratic orbits of city planning and city architecture. While photographing, we also noticed some typically post-colonialist scenes, the disharmonious juxtapositions of fashion and tradition, East and West, economics and politics, people and buildings, natural and manmade things. The latest extension of our work has been to put the 'development is the hard truth' slogan into the advertising spaces on the home pages of websites. Compared to an advertising billboard that has a specific address or location, a web site is a virtual address. We symbolically placed a 'development is the hard truth' banner on several representative virtual addresses (i.e. websites) along with information about our 'Linear Cites' investigations and the concept that cities are being turned into text and data. Through comparison, we may also discover the ways in which substantial cities and virtual cities interfere with and influence each other. This is an issue we will not be able to avoid in our future society.