Amusing to Death （part 1）极乐（第一部分）

religion china ILLUSTRATION series Internet traditional entertain sport poster Meme

美国3x3国际当代插画大赛 - 优选（编入年鉴）

3x3 International Illustration Shows No.15 Student Illustration - Merit

中国美术学院2017年林风眠创作奖 - 银奖

China Academy of Art 2017 Lin Fengmian Creative Award - Silver Award

2017第十八届白金创意国际大学生平面设计大赛 - 入围奖

2017 The 18th Platinum Originality International University Students Graphic Design Competition - Finalists Award

Amusing to Death (part 1)

This is my final project of undergraduate. I got the inspiration from a book called Amusing Ourselves to Death written by Neil Postman. It talks about how people's life was changed in 20th century when the television was first invented. He says: Americans no longer talk to each other, they entertain each other. They do not exchange ideas, they exchange images. They do not argue with propositions; they argue with good looks, celebrities and commercials.

The problem still exist in 21st century and seems to be getting much more serious than before with the help of the Internet and smart devices. Everything can be a kind of amusement in this era. Obviously, it can be rather dangerous for us.

So I put some famous characters and topics in China's Internet into a serious mode ----- Thangka, art of Tibetan buddhism(a kind of religious painting), in order to satirize the phenomenon in nowadays' society-----amusement has become a kind of common religion for all of us.

(Maybe you do not know all the characters in my illustrations, you can still know what I am talking about through one or two of them. Or you can try to ask your Chinese friends, they may know the prototypes of my work. :) )

极乐（第一部分）

这是我本科的毕业创作。

时代更迭，呈现在公众视野里的信息随媒介变化发生着剧变。尼尔波兹曼的《娱乐至死》抨击了20世纪电视媒介进入人们生活时出现的娱乐化倾向。而在流量至上的21世纪，秉承“娱乐至死”原则的症候群更是日趋壮大，娱乐渐已成为人们共有的信仰。媒体粉饰太平，嬉笑冲淡思考，不觉中我们已置身于虚幻而脆弱的“极乐”时代。

我将近年网络上和人们生活中的娱乐角色与话题置入严肃的范式之中——参考了唐卡绘画，将娱乐的主角化为宗教画中的神佛，讽刺当今的社会现象。