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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Art, Virus, and Immunity</span></b></p>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Dear all</span></p>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Thanks to Renate and Junting for inviting me. I apologize for my delayed post. Since December 2019, COVID-19 has claimed the lives of many people. While we are still in this pandemic,
many have already written about the virus. As an artist, I have also been trying to understand the relationship between art and virus.</span></p>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">We know that the virus and the human immune system are in a dialectical relationship—much as the virus and the security system in a computer. In fact, the 1918 Influenza Pandemic
has altered all humans because there were a large number of human survivors who acquired antibodies in their immune system. [As Jonathan mentioned in his post, the virus becomes a part of our biological machineries.] In a sense, it is the virus that prompts
a radical change in this self-regulated ecosystem on the planet. Of course, the virus is a threat to civilization, and we must take all measures to control its thread. And through the research of vaccines, we make sure that civilizations continue. Yet the
research on vaccines itself also alters the ways in which the human immune system would naturally evolve. Although more research is needed to further our understandings on this matter, there is no doubt that the vaccine is changing this self-regulated ecosystem
as we understand it.</span></p>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">I want to use this virus metaphor to examine art. In the history of art, progress comes with such radical changes, not unlike the virus. Duchamp’s (re)definition of art is an example
of “pandemic.” So, my question is—what could be the “virus” in the artworld of today? I think there are some similarities between the ways in which Duchamp changed art and the virus changed human body. And I have a few hunches:</span></p>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">1: It is destructive to the privileged knowledge system in existence</span></p>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">2: It is prone to rapid spread</span></p>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">3: It is inter-regional or global by nature,
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">4: It is produced within the existing civilization, but mutated through accidents</span></p>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Well, it seems that these are already existing art methods. But putting all these viewpoints together, there is also a process of coexistence and fusion. Again, this process is
a bit like the virus; only after many changes of the host, the virus then becomes the source of a “pandemic” in the ecosystem.</span></p>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><span style="mso-spacerun:yes">
</span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Dingquan Xie</span></p>
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