The dissident Chinese artist Ai Wei Wei has released a video to accompany his heavy metal single “Dumbass”. The track is taken from his forthcoming album “The Divine Comedy” and features Ai’s vocals and lyrics along with music by Zuoxiao Zuzhou.
Ai Wei Wei was detained for eighty-one days in 2011. He says that “Dumbass” represents an precise reconstruction of the events that occured while he was in jail. The set, costumes and scenarios were constructed to his specification. “When I was detained,” Ai said, “I memorised every single detail of the room because I had nothing else to do, and I really believed that the story should be told because it was so incredible. The song and this video and the best forms to represent that experience. Everyone who’s been through similar trauma has been hurt, the anger and feelings are difficult to release, and I am using imagery and sound to overcome the fear. As an artist, it is my job to find a way for that.”
Ai Wei Wei guest-edited the New Statesman in October 2012. The issue was published in English and Chinese and uploaded to bit torrent sites so as to evade “The Great Firewall” in China. Three features from the issue were recently shortlisted for an Amnesty International Media Award: “Fact have blood as evidence”, an interview Ai conducted with blind civil activist Chen Guangcheng; the “The Virus of Censorship”, in which newspaper editor Cheng Yizhong reveals how journalists in China are kept in a state of fear and endemic self-censorship through government manipulation and policing; and “Meet the 50 Cent Party”, which saw Ai Weiwei expose the underworld of state-sponsored commentators by interviewing an unnamed twenty six year old graduate who explained the process by which he is hired to influence the thoughts of ‘netizens’.