A digital rallying cry

Apr 12th 2011, 12:24 by S.T. | LONDON

THE Twitter accountof Ai Weiwei, China's foremost artist-activist, fell silent when he wasarrested on April 3rd. Chinese state media suggest that he is guilty of"economic crimes" and a bevy of other reputation-killers such asplagiarism and being "erratic." But his imprisonment is clearly a meansof shutting him up. A forceful advocate of democracy and free speech, MrAi used his blog to confront the fictions of government propaganda.With belligerent conviction, he railed against the inhumanity of aregime with no respect for the truth.
 
"Twitter is most suitablefor me. In the Chinese language, 140 characters is a novella," says MrAi in an interview at the back of "Ai Weiwei's Blog",a collection of over a hundred translated pieces culled from over 2,700posts. Mr Ai's father, Ai Qing, was a poet who was deemed an enemy ofthe state in 1957, rehabilitated only when the Cultural Revolution dieddown in 1976. But Mr Ai had written very little himself. In fact, thevisual artist barely knew how to type when he was invited by Sina,China's largest internet portal, to write a blog for their website.
 
Aproponent of simple, authentic architecture, not fancy forms for form'ssake, Mr Ai has overseen some 70 architectural projects, and was aconsultant on Herzog & de Meuron's "Bird's Nest" stadium for theBeijing Olympics. Some of Mr Ai's most memorable writings weave personalhistory with political and aesthetic principles. For example, his"earliest experience with architecture" took place when his father wassentenced to hard labour and re-education and the family was forced tolive in an earthen pit in Xinjiang. "In political circumstances likethose, living underground can provide an incredible feeling ofsecurity," he writes. "In the winter it was warm, in the summer it wascool. Its walls were linked with America." Mr Ai's father raised theceilings of this home by burrowing down another 20 centimetres, and hedug out a bookshelf that eight-year-old Weiwei considered "the best".For these reasons, concludes the artist, "I don't believe in idealarchitecture."
 
In 2007 Mr Ai integrated his blog into his artwhen he was creating an epic performance titled "Fairytale". Through theinternet, he recruited 1,001 Chinese people who had never been toEurope to wander around the small town of Kassel Germany duringDocumenta, a prestigious exhibition that takes place every five years.Mr Ai wanted to change their lives. The artist had spent 12 years in NewYork City; he understood the horizon-expanding powers of being abroad.
 
Thebulk of Mr Ai's writings preach the importance of various human rightsto a Chinese audience who is not yet converted. On the eve of the20-year anniversary of Tiananmen Square, he wrote with elegiac irony:"Let us forget June Fourth, forget that day with no specialsignificance... People with no freedom of speech, no freedom of the pressand no right to vote aren't human, and they don't need a memory… Forgetthose soldiers firing on civilians... the city and the square thatdidn’t shed tears. Forget the endless lies, the leaders in power whoinsist that everyone must forget, forget their weakness, wickedness, andineptitude… For our own survival, let us forget."
 
When it comesto the West, Mr Ai is a fan of Andy Warhol, Barack Obama and HillaryClinton. He is not so fond of Nancy Pelosi, an American congresswoman.After hearing her "mumbles" on human rights at the American Embassy inBeijing in May 2009, he declared: "I have finally witnessed the amountof money that could turn a once crafty heroine into an obsequious,culpable old bag." After her speech, he found plainclothes policemenwaiting for him at his studio-home. They didn't have their policeidentification, so he called 110 (the equivalent of 911) and whatfollowed was, as he puts it, "an absurdist novel gone wrong."
 
MrAi has had many confrontations with the police, including one incidentin Sichuan province where he was so badly beaten that he developed acerebral haemorrhage that required surgery. Since his Sina.comblog was censored in May 2009, his existence has been erased from thedigital domain on the Mainland. "Words can be deleted but the factswon't be deleted along with them," he affirms on Twitter via a VPN thatallows him to jump over the Great Firewall."No matter what happens, nothing can prevent the historical process bywhich society demands freedom and democracy," he asserts, adding, "Whatcan they do to me?"
 
Indeed, if anyone can survive unjust imprisonment, it is Mr Ai. In an interview with The Economist beforehe was incarcerated, he said that his father did not want him to be anartist for fear that he would suffer. "But I became an artist because,even under pressure, my father still had somewhere nobody could touch,"he explained. "Even when the whole world was dark, there was somethingwarm in his heart."

"Ai Weiwei's Blog: Writings, Interviews and Digital Rants, 2006-2009" (MIT Press), edited and translated by Lee Ambrozy

Picture credit:A self-portrait (top) taken during Ai Weiwei's arrest in Sichuanprovince (before he was beaten); it's 5am and he is in a hotel elevatorwith a policeman and a fellow activist. On April 9th Cai Yuan, anartist, and Ma Jian, a writer, staged a protest at Tate Modern byputting "Free Ai Weiwei" flyers all over his "Sunflower Seeds"installation; photo: Cai Yuan