Vol. 10 (2025)

Research Articles

On the Form and Meaning of “Guichu”

Published 2025-10-31

  • Congcong Bi

Congcong Bi
Sichuan Normal University image/svg+xml

Abstract

Guichu is an avant-garde art form born from popular culture, constituting an edge cultural phenomenon on the ontological level. As a product of postmodern culture, Guichu emerges incidentally amidst semantic confusion. In terms of artistic creation, Guichu’s technical-artistic features challenge established art norms through discomfort and playful subversion. In artistic presentation, Guichu embodies the non-central aesthetics of postmodern art. As a transformed contemporary popular art form, Guichu typifies the ruins-relics characteristic of postmodern art.

Keywords

Guichui, Art, Technique, Postmodernism

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References

  1. Benjamin, Illuminations, Hanna Arendt ed., Harry Zohn trans., New York: Schocken Books, 1969, p, 221.
  2. Benjamin, Illuminations, Hanna Arendt ed., Harry Zohn trans., New York: Schocken Books, 1969, p, 237.
  3. All presented art has become ruins. In this sense, postmodern art uses all art and non-art works as materials. Classics, hotpots, products of marginal people are all objects that can be guichu(verb).
  4. 许慎撰：《说文解字注》，段玉裁注，上海：上海古籍出版社，1981年，第1376页。[Xu Shen, Shuowen Jiezi Zhu, annotated by Duan Yucai, Shanghai: Shanghai Classics Publishing House, 1981, p. 1376.]
  5. A type of video prominent on sites like NICONICO, AcFun, and Bilibili.
  6. CBETA 2020.Q4, T01, no. 81, p. 899a3-6.
  7. CBETA 2020.Q4, T14, no. 441, p. 232b27-c4.
  8. CBETA 2020.Q4, T14, no. 441, p. 232b20-26.
  9. MAD (マッド-) refers to multimedia works within gaming, anime and fan fiction. Generally, these works are edited video clips set to music chosen by the author, resembling a form similar to fan MVs. The difference lies in the focus of MAD works on the video, paying homage to related animations or games, whereas fan MVs focus more on the music. Some MAD works consist solely of edited sound or video footage.
  10. 尼采：《悲剧的诞生》，周国平译，北京：北京十月文艺出版社，2019年，第55-56页。[Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy, Zhou Guoping trans., Beijing: Beijing October Literature and Art Publishing House, 2019, pp. 55-56.]
  11. 泰奥菲儿·戈蒂耶：《莫班小姐》，艾珉译，北京：人民文学出版社，2008年，第22页。[Théophile Gautier, Mademoiselle de Maupin, Ai Min trans., Beijing: People’s Literature Publishing House, 2008, p. 22.]
  12. 夏尔·波德莱尔：《波德莱尔美学论文选》，郭宏安译，北京：人民文学出版社，1987年，第135页。[Charles Baudelaire, Selected Aesthetic Essays of Baudelaire, Guo Hong’an trans., Beijing: People’s Literature Publishing House, 1987, p. 135.]
  13. 尼采：《悲剧的诞生》，周国平译，北京：北京十月文艺出版社，2019年，第57页。 [Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy, Zhou Guoping trans., Beijing: Beijing October Art and Literature Publishing House, 2019, p. 57.]
  14. This kind of game nature is typically shown in the capture and reset of sound (mixed voices, replaced voices, harmonies), various collages of images, and accidental combination of texts and meanings. Curiosity and showiness (showmanship) produce the joy of games.
  15. 席勒：《席勒文集6理论卷》，张玉书选编，张佳珏等译，北京：人民文学出版社，2005年，第219页。[Schiller, Schiller Collection 6 Theory Volume, selected and edited by Zhang Yushu, Zhang Jiayue trans., Beijing: People’s Literature Publishing House, 2005, p. 219.]
  16. 雅克·朗西埃：《思考“歧感”：政治与美学》，谢卓婷译，载《马克思主义美学研究》，2014年第17期，第204-222及397-398页。[Jacques Ranciere, “Dissensus: On Politics and Aesthetics”, Xie Zhuoting trans., in Marxist Aesthetic Research, issue 17, 2014, pp. 204-222, 397-398. ]
  17. [See Claire Bishop, “Conflicts and Relational Aesthetics”, in October Magazine, 2004, pp. 51-79. ]
  18. 参见阿多诺：《美学理论》，王柯平译，成都：四川人民出版社，1998年。[Adorno, Aesthetic Theory, Wang Keping trans., Chengdu: Sichuan People’s Publishing House, 1998. ]
  19. The host manipulates objects (such as exhaling or rubbing on a microphone) to produce sounds similar to white noise, which pleases the audience.
  20. Zha Changping, A History of Ideas in Pioneering Contemporary Chinese Art, Volume 1: World Relational Aesthetics, Shanghai: Shanghai Joint Publishing Co., 2017, p. 44. [查常平：《中国先锋艺术思想史第一卷 世界关系美学》，上海：上海三联书店，2017年，第44页。] The technical borrowing of commercial advertisements (such as “Chinese Good Voice” focusing on its “brainwashing” effect) is a strong proof of capital infiltration into art. Of course, even mainstream cultural policies especially restrict the development of subcultures, the latter are based on rationality, which is the basis of all artistic form, and technique-art does not mean chaos or disorder.
  21. Dick Heberdig, Subculture: The Meaning of Style, Meng Dengying et al. trans., Beijing: Peking University Press, 2009; John Fiske, Understanding Popular Culture, Wang Xiaoya et al. trans., Beijing: Central Compilation and Translation Press, 2001; Denis McQuail, Mass Communications Theory, Cui Baoguo et al trans., Beijing: Tsinghua University Press, 2010.[参见迪克·赫伯迪格：《亚文化风格的意义》，孟登迎等译，北京：北京大学出版社，2009年；约翰·费斯克：《理解大众文化》，王晓压等译，北京：中央编译出版社，2001年；麦奎尔：《大众传播理论》，崔保国等译，北京：清华大学出版社，2010年。]