Window of the world: Transparency, digital placemaking, and Shenzhen Urbanism

Abstract

Shenzhen, the first Special Economic Zone established in 1979 in southern China, has transformed from a global electronics manufacturing hub and counterfeiting capital into a UNESCO City of Design within the span of four decades. This article examines three digital-imaging practices that emanate from the city to explore the city's multiple connections to globalization from above and globalization from below. The first is the 2004 narrative film The World, directed by Jia Zhang-ke (often known as a Sixth-Generation Chinese auteur) and based in part on lead actress Zhao Tao's experience working in Shenzhen's Window of the World theme park. The second is Shenzhen-based company Transsion's design of smart phones for the African market, which have roots in the city's Shanzhai (i.e. “knockoff”) mobile phone sector. The third is large-scale light shows around the city in 2018–2019 that turn the facades of high-rises into electronic screens, featuring LED-light imageries generated by algorithms. Utilizing digital media to illuminate Shenzhen as a networked place in the world, these relational place-making practices simultaneously engage with and reveal the contradictions of transparency as a normative ideal upheld by global tech giants and Euro-American governments. Together, they provide a distinctive window to discern China's cultural and political dilemmas in the 21st century.