The Shanghai That Doesn’t Exist (2022) is a series of conceptual and performance pieces exploring memories, dreams, and the metaxy between the real and unreal. It is a semiotic reflection (a la Baudrillard) on the evolving identity of the young Shanghai middle-class, and a meta-story about the restaurant and bar cultures emerging in Jing An, Xu Hui and Chang Ning over the recent years.

Every space is colored with meanings. A small alley. A public park. A dive bar. A space-out apartment. Forgotten memories crawl to the surface. A performance under the mist. A restaurant that feels cozy even at an empty Tuesday night. Dim lighting and soft music raise the volume of night and of the surrounding stillness. It prompts us to notice the first hints of conversational intimacy. The dinner date. We see the waiter coming towards us. We are reminded the music from a party a few months back.

These noises of the soundless are easily missed; the overt silence underneath the sounds of the city.

[...]

**: 让·鲍德里亚(Jean Baudrillard)是我很喜欢的二十世纪哲学家 。（我中文表达有限，The Shanghai That Doesn’t Exist课题以英文为主）过阵子，我有时间，我会和中日法俄文朋友把我对鲍德里亚的一些伸延，以及作品中对「意识」的探讨，翻译成中日法俄

Archy Will He
5th July 2022