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Lot Essay
"If beings from another planet landed here, what kind of things should they see to understand human achievement?" (cited in Friis-Hansen, Zaya, Takashi,Cai Guo-Qiang London, 2002, p. 66.)
As its title suggests, Rebuilding the Berlin Wall: Project for Extraterrestrials No: 7 is the seventh work in a series of works known as the "Project for Extraterrestrials" that Cai Guo-Qiang has made with the explicit intention of their being witnessed by extraterrestrial life forms. Cosmically aware of the position of human life within the universe, much of Cai's work is aimed at demonstrating the interconnectedness of everything in the comsos. He believes for example, that "when humans, art and nature are unified, the perfect system will emerge". As a consequence of such Taoist thinking and belief, Cai was immediately drawn to gunpowder as both a material and a medium for his art because it has the potential to unify heaven and earth, the terrestrial and the cosmic. "At the moment of explosion" he points out, "all existences in the celestial bodies, earth and humans are entranced - time/space stops, or time/space goes back to its origin. They unite with the ether of the universe." (cited in Ibid, p. 49)
Rebuilding the Berlin Wall: Project for Extraterrestrials No: 7 is effectively a gunpowder drawing that forms a study for the seventh project in the series that Qiang proposed but which was not in fact realised. Cai proposed to rebuild the outline of the Berlin Wall through a line of gunpower and fuse which when set off would ignite the outline of the wall in such away that it would be visible from space. This display would be simultaneously transmitted by satellite television around the earth. His aim in returning people's focus to the Berlin wall some years after its destruction was to "remind the public of the existence of shackles and fetters from which we must free ourselves." (cited in Ibid, p. 51) He also envisaged extraterrestrials wondering if humans sought by such means to "confess their sins by recreating walls, and if this was both a message of hope for future generations and an admission of the need for change." ( Ibid, p. 51)
As its title suggests, Rebuilding the Berlin Wall: Project for Extraterrestrials No: 7 is the seventh work in a series of works known as the "Project for Extraterrestrials" that Cai Guo-Qiang has made with the explicit intention of their being witnessed by extraterrestrial life forms. Cosmically aware of the position of human life within the universe, much of Cai's work is aimed at demonstrating the interconnectedness of everything in the comsos. He believes for example, that "when humans, art and nature are unified, the perfect system will emerge". As a consequence of such Taoist thinking and belief, Cai was immediately drawn to gunpowder as both a material and a medium for his art because it has the potential to unify heaven and earth, the terrestrial and the cosmic. "At the moment of explosion" he points out, "all existences in the celestial bodies, earth and humans are entranced - time/space stops, or time/space goes back to its origin. They unite with the ether of the universe." (cited in Ibid, p. 49)
Rebuilding the Berlin Wall: Project for Extraterrestrials No: 7 is effectively a gunpowder drawing that forms a study for the seventh project in the series that Qiang proposed but which was not in fact realised. Cai proposed to rebuild the outline of the Berlin Wall through a line of gunpower and fuse which when set off would ignite the outline of the wall in such away that it would be visible from space. This display would be simultaneously transmitted by satellite television around the earth. His aim in returning people's focus to the Berlin wall some years after its destruction was to "remind the public of the existence of shackles and fetters from which we must free ourselves." (cited in Ibid, p. 51) He also envisaged extraterrestrials wondering if humans sought by such means to "confess their sins by recreating walls, and if this was both a message of hope for future generations and an admission of the need for change." ( Ibid, p. 51)