isen.blog

Was Ai Wei Wei, the awestriking artist from mainland China I met at the DLD conference in 2007, beaten by Chinese police for protesting the deaths of thousands of school children in Chengdu when shodily-built schools collapsed in an earthquake on May 12, 2008? Is Ai Wei Wei undergoing surgery in Germany for brain damage? Is the alleged brain damage a result of the alleged beating? How do you find evidence you trust?

Ethan Zuckerman plays it right down the middle, aiming at each nuance of the might-be story as if it were a reflector bump separating the lanes of a dark highway on a foggy night. We know that Ai Wei Wei's blog is gone, with this picture in its place, which is, in turn,

a reference to a dirty joke about Chinese censorship so complicated that [Ethan has] to lead you to a whole other blogpost to explain it.

Ethan concludes

I still don’t know whether Ai Weiwei is having surgery today, or whether the surgery is connected to his police treatment. I pray that he’s okay.

Even before the current set of (possible) incidents, Ai Wei Wei appeared to me as a mythical presence more than as a human being. The art, the architecture, the vision, the feats of installation, flowed out of him. Of course I hope he's OK. But, in some other sense, he's Paul Bunyan. Of course he has a pet blue ox. Of course he cut down the biggest tree in the forest. Of course he avenged the deaths of five thousand school children. Of course it took a hundred Chinese cops to subdue him. Of course an ancient, secret society spirited him to Germany for surgery. Of course the best brain surgeons in the world restored his extrasensory powers. Of course he'll live.

UPDATE: Apparently Ai Wei Wei was beaten, did suffer brain trauma, did have the surgery in Germany and is recovering nicely. [source]

Technorati Tags: art, China, DLD, EthanZuckerman, myth, RebeccaMacKinnon