Cyber-Shanzhai: Aesthetics and Web-Related Media Art Practice

This practice-based research examines the digital transformation of Shanzhai culture and proposes it as an interpretive framework for web-related media art. Shanzhai (山寨), once associated with cheap “copycat” goods from clandestine factories, is reevaluated as grassroots innovation rooted in Southern China’s entrepreneurial ecosystem. Emerging across smartphone manufacturing, fashion, and urban architecture, Shanzhai fosters an aesthetic of imitation, appropriation, parody, and remix that reworks existing cultural and technological forms. Addressing limited scholarship on Shanzhai as an aesthetic production regime and its migration into cyberculture, the project introduces “Cyber-Shanzhai” as a framework for understanding its digital evolution and relevance to contemporary art practice. Through a study of the Chinese Internet, focusing on the platform Bilibili, it maps online Shanzhai aesthetics and production logics. It theorises the “Shanzhai-ing machine” as a conceptual device for automating variation, and examines AI’s role in these processes as “ShanzhAI”. The research integrates theory with practice, evaluating Cyber-Shanzhai within post-Internet art and outlining methods for artists to engage, critique, and extend Shanzhai strategies in web-based contexts. It contributes a vocabulary and set of tools for recognising emergent aesthetics and innovation cultures in Southern China, while opening broader discussions about how remix-driven making reshapes media art, platform ecologies, and technological development. By positioning Shanzhai within digital networks and creative workflows, the project redefines “copycat” activity as a productive mode of design and cultural creation. It also explores the ethical implications and global resonances of Shanzhai in today’s digital culture worldwide.