CY@CY Says Welcome to my dreamscape. Where a Lim is also a Ling.
Dissident Chinese artist Ai Weiwei has officially hopped on the Gangnam Style bandwagon with his version titled Grass Mud Horse Style, a jibe aimed at China’s communist regime
The video clip, posted on October 24 to Chinese sites such as “Tudou”, features the hefty 55-year-old artist showing off his moves with a cohort of associates in his Beijing courtyard studio to the worldwide music phenomenon that is Gangnam Style. In one scene, Ai appears handcuffed to a fellow dancer, a possible reference to the 81 days he spent in detention last spring.
Ai Weiwei doing his parody of Gangnam Style
Grass Mud Horse in Chinese (Cao Ni Ma) sounds similar to a profane insult, forbidden on the country’s social networking sites.
“We only filmed for a bit over 10 minutes but we used a whole day to edit, and eventually put it online at midnight,” Ai said.
“After we had uploaded it, a few hours later … we found that a lot of people, tens of thousands, had already watched it. Now, in China, it has already been totally removed, deleted entirely, and you can’t see it in China,” Ai said.
“Overall, we feel that every person has the right to express themselves, and this right of expression is fundamentally linked to our happiness and even our existence,” Ai said.
“When a society constantly demands that everyone should abandon this right, then the society becomes a society without creativity. It can never become a happy society.”
Ai, whose 81-day detention last year sparked an international outcry, has regularly criticised the government for its flouting of the rule of law and the rights of citizens.
