Curator Spotlight #5: Cao Shu
In this fourth chapter of our Curator Spotlight series, we continue our journey through the evolving landscape of Chinese digital and new media art. This time, we turn our attention to Cao Shu, a multidisciplinary artist whose practice spans writing, photography, 3D digital moving image, mixed-media sculpture, and video game-based installations.
Through this conversation, Giuseppe Moscatello and Linda Shen explore the intricately layered universe Cao constructs, a universe where digital aesthetics and mythic structures intersect, and where haunting reflections on history, memory, and speculative futures emerge.
Cao Shu’s recent work explores subjects such as nuclear energy as a ghostly medium, socialist science fiction, swarm intelligence, digital memory and encryption systems, and speculative cosmologies like the Chthulucene. He weaves these themes into projects that blur the boundaries between visual narrative, interactive systems, and philosophical inquiry, often positioning the viewer in a space of uncertainty and curiosity.
His experimental works have been exhibited at world-renowned venues such as Kunsthaus Baselland, Matadero Madrid, M+ Museum Hong Kong, Power Station of Art (Shanghai), UCCA Dune, BY ART MATTERS (Hangzhou), Macao Art Museum, OCAT Shanghai, Sleep Center New York, and White Rabbit Gallery (Sydney). His moving image projects have also earned recognition in major international film festivals, including Leipzig DOK, DMZ Docs, Annecy, Ottawa International Animation Festival, and the Milano and Message to Man International Film Festivals.
Cao’s practice invites us to consider how digital languages—, ar from being neutral, encode memory, ideology, and speculation. His visual poetics speak to a deeper truth beneath the surface of algorithmic systems: that technology is not just a tool for representation, but a generative mythological engine capable of summoning ghosts, rewriting futures, and storing the unconscious collective of an era.
In this interview, we explore how Cao approaches narrative structure, historical hauntings, and the role of the artist as both archivist and architect of speculative digital realities.
Giuseppe Moscatello and Linda Shen: In your work you explore hauntology in relation to collectivism and personal family histories. How do you approach the tension between personal memory and collective ideology in your storytelling?
Cao Shu: In my view, personal memory often appears against the backdrop of collective subconscious. By a very random coincidence, I discovered that 3D rendered digital images have a kind of false realism in their appearance—reminiscent of the architectural renderings we remember or images that carry distinct marks of a specific era. This visual impression is rooted in the collective memory of a whole era, a subconscious level of visual experience. Therefore, personal memory is, to some extent, unreliable or, much like a 3D rendered image, filtered through the subject’s own lens of recollection. For example, in my work “Phantom Sugar” and “Infinity and Infinity Plus One,” the artificial feel of the rendered images connects with the narrator’s dreamlike, fragmented memories. In the work “Contains it like lines of a hand”, collectivism acts as a filter on my mother’s personal memory. In her childhood recollections, the experience of digging air-raid shelters is set against the backdrop of Soviet nuclear deterrence and the public life following the Tangshan earthquake. Yet, in her personal memory, these experiences feel like a fairy tale as she wandered through underground castles at her neighbors’ homes.
This collective background influences personal habits and leaves a subconscious impact on an individual’s entire life—shaping attitudes towards life, feelings for siblings, and the care given to the next generation. Media works in a similar way. Media, as a bearer of information, implants default values into us on a subconscious visual level. In fact, many artworks explore how collectivist media, such as radio, television, film, digital media, video games, even certain dressing habits, body movements, or distinctive sounds, subtly shape our inclinations.
You often draw on the sensory experience of specific locations. What is your process for translating a physical space into a digital or cinematic language?
Digitality and materiality have always been the core issues I want to explore. A specific location can provide detailed sensory experiences and narrative resources that contain a wealth of material elements. We often hold deeply ingrained ideologies about certain materials, yet the definition of matter is always shifting and fluid—depending on our perspective and life experiences. Since the latter half of the 20th century, the digital world has gradually encroached on the physical world, with cybernetics and dataism now governing modern life. Against this backdrop, I believe our attitude toward materiality is still open to debate. I want to use the perspective offered by the digital world to reexamine our long-standing understandings of the physical world. This includes both logical reasoning as well as perceptions at the visual and subconscious levels—that is, the realm of feeling. Digital imagery, or machine vision, gives me a completely different experience of the physical world.
Learning about technology has also provided me with valuable feedback, prompting me to reconsider film language and writing from a new angle. For example, in the work “Diffusion,” I researched materials related to the Nagasaki nuclear bombing and the “Operation Crossroads” nuclear test program while generating images with artificial intelligence. The emotional material from these specific locations allowed me to rethink the relationship between photography, image-generation techniques, and the deceased—examining light—the technologies that both create and destroy . Without such sensory material from these places, it would be challenging to make associations and breakthroughs beyond pure logic.
How do you think the concept of “site-specific” changes when the medium itself like video games or VR is inherently placeless or fluid?
Digital media without a fixed location certainly offers us a lot of convenience, but that ease often comes at the cost of losing a great deal of information. One major characteristic of digital media is its ability to be mass-replicated, meaning the experiences it delivers can be duplicated endlessly. Bernard Stiegler discusses this issue extensively in Technics and Time. When experiences are instantly delivered or “airdropped,” it means that unique memories are missing. The possibilities within a string of code are limited, and I believe that even the most advanced artificial intelligence we have today can only respond to unexpected situations in a limited way. Comparing the infinite possibilities of the material world with the finite possibilities of the digital world, the answer becomes evident—I’ve experienced this contrast myself in video games. In my recent works, I’ve largely been exploring how we try to use dataism and digital simulations to predict the future and lay out blueprints, but ultimately the error-prone material world forcefully corrects these plans. Whether it’s the sugar-fueled global futures trading, the failures of seemingly all-powerful AI, or the rendered false blueprints of the future, all these phenomena are, in one way or another, responses to this issue.
It is precisely because local or place-based knowledge is so sensory that it can break many of the thought traps arising from globalization. In my view, “placelessness” seems to metaphorically signal the absence of nostalgia and a gradual loss of our sensory depth. A life without roots—and perhaps a new digital life—might indeed begin from that very lack of roots.
If you were to create a digital archive of a fictional civilization, what kind of methodology or visual systems would you invent?
Following up on the previous point, I think a fictional archive of a civilization might begin with “no nostalgia,” with no roots, with no memory at all. I once created a video game work called “Roam Simulator,” which dealt with the concept of a “reverse Dyson Sphere.” In science fiction, the Dyson Sphere is a futuristic concept based on extractivism, where a civilization’s advancement is measured by its ability to completely convert its star’s energy. In that line of thought, all matter is seen as a resource that can be quantified. Beyond that, memory and unique personal experiences simply vanish. So what kind of civilization would that be? It certainly wouldn’t have the joys, sorrows, and emotional depth of humanism, nor would it be interested in memory or history. Perhaps it could be seen as a visual representation of “amnesia”？
Giuseppe Moscatello
Giuseppe Moscatello is an Artistic Director and Cultural Entrepreneur with over two decades of experience in shaping the art and cultural landscapes of the UAE and Italy. As a cofounder of the Maraya Art Centre and 1971 – Design Space in Sharjah, Giuseppe has played a pivotal role in establishing groundbreaking platforms for contemporary art and design. Currently, he serves as the cofounder and director of Foundry Downtown, a progressive art space in Dubai. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Fine Art from the Accademia di Belle Arti di Roma. Specializing in Placemaking, Giuseppe is renowned for conceptualizing and implementing thought-provoking art, design, and cultural projects, with a strong emphasis on art strategies, cultural diplomacy, innovation, and fostering cultural intelligence. A committed advocate for emerging artists, Giuseppe supports the cultural ecosystem by mentoring young artists and cultural practitioners. In recent years, Giuseppe has observed and deepened into the evolving realm of digital art, exploring the intersections of blockchain technology and new media as tools for empowering artistic and cultural projects.
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