Cantocore will take place in a public multifunction creative space called Ping Pong. In preparation for the show, the space was modeled in 3D. These renders serve as a basis for a real-time interactive walkthrough of the same space that is currently in the works.

This is a view from inside Ping Pong showing the back of the space and an entrance located at the side:

This is a view from inside Ping Pong showing the side entrance from the opposite wall.

This is a view from inside Ping Pong showing the main entrance to the building from the opposing brick wall.

This is a view from inside Ping Pong showing the space from the entrance on the side.

This is a view from inside Ping Pong showing the entrance from the top of the brick wall on the opposing side.

The name for the show, Cantocore, comes from our friend Alex Yeung who founded a band called Say Bok Gwai in San Francisco, California that creates music in the Cantocore style. It is such an apt term to describe the lifestyle of so many. Here is a description of the band Say Bok Gwai:

Say Bok Gwai combines hardcore, metal, punk, thrash music with Cantonese vocals. A unique blend of two cultures, Say Bok Gwai covers a variety of the harder musical genres and has songs about food, differing cultural perspectives, Chinese American pride, white America, mating, metal, politics, and more.

Check out this video made by Danwei TV about Say Bok Gwai:

The Cantocore Home Concert Preview is coming up this WED, JULY 23rd from 7-9 PM as said before. And, no event can be had without also posting it up on facebook and upcoming. Join at the aforementioned links:

If you want to help spread the news about the event, do it with the container image on this post.

加入”硬核广州”预展音乐会

如之前所述，硬核广州预展音乐会将于本周三、7月23日七点至九点举行。请通过之前提及的链接加入到我们中来。如果您有意愿帮助传播这次项目的新闻信息，可以通过这篇布告上的集装箱图片来传播。

We have put some love into the site and have added some of the proposals that artists art making real for the set of Cantocore shows.

Luther Thie's Overturn

One interesting project is Luther Thie’s Overturn which literally will require people at the show opening to overturn a vehicle. Thie goes onto state:

Overturn is the idea as starting point for a series of artworks in various media that depict or enact overturns of some kind. The germination image is of a hauling truck at an excavation site overturned onto a mountainside in China. Its cargo strewn down the hillside creates the predicament — the moment of not knowing how to right a problem situation, what to do after the overturning. Overturn can be defined as to upset, turn over, or to cause ruination as in the overthrow of a government, to reverse or invalidate a conviction and the state of having been overturned.
The interpretation of the work will inevitably be colored by the relationship between China and the United States. Is one country being overturned by the other? Are cultural assumptions being overturned by the continuing globalization patterns of international trade and consumption?
Get a Chinese “Crazy Soldier” truck (the Chinese version of the American Hummer) and as a performance, flip it over onto its side/top. Leave it installed as the final work for the show and have it accompanied with a video of a hummer in a perpetual tumble down a mountain.

Chinese Military Hummer

Funny enough, Luther talked about how he might track down the unofficial Chinese Hummer copy, roughly translated to “Crazy Boy.” While there is this consumer copy, the Chinese military has a nice copy of the hummer show above. Actually, they are one in the same!

There is an interesting space to in the copying of intellectual property cross-border such as a hummer. Will copying the hummer also replicate the problems of Hummer’s parent company in shipping units in spite of all-time high gas prices in America. Hopefully the Chinese copy will have better gas mileage!

Cantocore Home Concert Preview is coming up next Wednesday July 23rd. Right now our RSVP deadline for this event is extended to Monday, July 21st. And tickets are on sale right now for $50 USD! All money goes to the production of the Cantocore exhibition in Guangzhou and San Francisco. And, all contributions will be rewarded with praise, promotion in printed materials and on this website.

This event is a preview of the coming exhibitions, and also a home concert featuring Chinese traditional instrument musician Ma Jie and electronic musician Christopher Willits.

To reserve your tickets please do one of the following:

Call Justin at 415-425-1647
Email: jhoover.charles@gmail.com
Or use Paypal option

“硬核广州”预展：预定时间延长并且入场券在售中！

硬核广州预展音乐会在下周三即7月23日就要到来了。现在我们这次预展音乐会的预定截止时间已经延伸至周一即7月21日。并且从现在开始出售入场券，价格为50美元。所有收入都将用来制作这次在广州和旧金山的硬核广州展览。并且，所有的捐款、贡献将通过印刷品以及本网站予以感谢及发扬。
这场音乐会是即将来临的展览会的一个预展，同时也是由中国传统乐器音乐家Ma Jie及电子音乐家Christopher Willits为主的一场本土音乐会。

您可以通过以下任一方式预定入场券：

电话至Justin: 415-425-1647
邮件至: jhoover.charles@gmail.com

或者通过Paypal支付

This is the last project in Ping Pong Art Space in Guangzhou, where we will have Cantocore exhibition in September. This very complex architectural structure is designed by Alex Hall. In the video, it is being assembled by many volunteers in Guangzhou. Some of the volunteers are my students from Sun Yat-Sen University.

W/S/P/T一个在乒乓艺术空间的建筑项目
这是在广州乒乓艺术空间最后的一个项目，同时也是我们在9月硬核广州展览的地点。这一错综复杂的建筑结构是由Alex Hall设计的。而这份视频录像展示的是来自广州的许多志愿者正在装配这一建筑结构的过程。其中的一些志愿者是我在广州中山大学的学生。

Cantocore; an international exhibition of contemporary Chinese and U.S. art, opening in Guangzhou and San Francisco, fall 2008.

On Art, War, and Dialogue

Lebbeus Woods, the internationally renowned architect is known to have said that Architecture is War. By this he means that in life art and architecture can be understood as a process of making ideas become actual, upsetting the balance, destroying certitude, and reconfiguring power. In terms of architecture, the tangibility of this concept is palpable. Monuments create history, building express philosophies, and nations judges other nations according to their level of development.

More abstractly however, in the arts, the structures of life that undergo reconfiguration are oftentimes much less evident. In this way artists seek to reassert a voice to alternative viewpoints and philosophies, often times on an intimate scale, or on a microscopic level. Together the simplest gestures or ideas can equate to a movement, a revolution. In this way, Cantocore seeks to foment an exchange of new ideas between China and the United States. Specifically, we are targeting San Francisco, due to its cultural and spatial proximity to China, and Guangzhou, due to its emergence as one of the many new Asian art poles. This series of collaborations known as CANTOCORE Signifies the building of a bridge between two distinct yet intertwined worlds. Together this intercultural dialogical bridge will bring the seeds of abstract and alternative thought to their fullest manifestations.

– Justin Hoover - Thoughts on peace, war, and intercultural dialogue

欢迎来到“硬核广州”

硬核广州，一个关于当代中国和美国艺术的国际性展览，于2008年秋季开幕于广州及旧金山。

关于艺术、战争与对话

Lebbeus Woods这位国际著名建筑家因为曾说过建筑是战争而闻名。因此他认为生活中艺术与建筑可以被理解为一个将理想变为现实的过程，这一过程打破着平衡、破坏着真实并且重新配置着权力。就建筑而言，这一理念的确实性是极其明了的。纪念性建筑物引发着历史来历，房屋建筑传达着哲学态度，并且一个民族因为其发展水平而对另外一些民族具有裁判权。

然而更为抽象地，在艺术方面，遭受重配置的生命结构经常是不明显的。在这种情况下，艺术家们对于可选择的观点及哲学，寻求重新主张一种声音。同时最简单的比画或者思想可以等同于一场运动、一场革命。在这种情况下，“硬核广州”尝试、寻求去促进中国与美国间新兴理念交流的可能。具体地我们将目标选定在旧金山是因为其在文化以及空间上接近中国，同时我们选择广州是因为其渐渐已成为众多亚洲新兴艺术区之一。这一系列被称作是“硬核广州”的合作开展，将意味着是这两个不同但却交织在一起的世界间桥梁的建起。同时，这一不同文化间的对话桥梁将使得抽象理论的或者其他可供选择的想法之种子完满盛开。

– Justin Hoover - 关于和平、战争以及不同文化间对话的思考