The Bloom
Unveiling the Power of our Mind
Directed by Jody Xiong
Interview by Tatev Avetisyan
Following Jang Yimou’s invitation, the Chief Director of the 2022 Winter Paralympic Games in Beijing, Chinese artist Jody Xiong debuted a technologically powered installation, The Bloom, for its opening ceremony. He takes the viewer through the journey of twelve disabled people, who gather around a large circular canvas to create a smiley face by exploding paint filled-balloons. The intrigue and power of the project lie within the participants’ minds, as it is the only way to make the balloons pop - using the brainwave capturing device. To imprint the message for the years to follow, Jody Xiong directed a short film, The Bloom, adding to his portfolio of socially driven, evocative and stimulating works.
The combination of high technology and the human mind intersects with Jody Xiong’s vision of artistic values and aesthetics that revolve around power and purpose. In conversation with Curation Hour, Jody Xiong recounts the turning points in his career path, gives tips on advertising campaigns, explains the current expectations of the Chinese market, and interprets the concept behind The Bloom.
Digital Director at Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony, Visual Artist at Beijing 2022 Winter Paralympics Opening Ceremony and Founder and Creative Director at the creative agency The Nine Shanghai. Tell us about your artistic path and the milestones that shaped you and your professional journey.
From 1993 to 1998, I attended two universities, Hunan University of Technology Business and Central Academy of Arts & Design, where I studied Art Design. That is where I began the training of my basic aesthetics. I left Ogilvy in 2016 and attended school at New York Film Academy for half a year. Today, The Nine Shanghai doesn’t only provide creative services, but also commercial film directing for brands. It means a lot more possibilities for me.
My first job after graduation was in architectural environment design. And my first work was the design of a children’s playground: using cement steel bars to simulate a tree-shaped canopy, intertwined with each other to form a towering tree paradise 50 metres wide and 6 metres high. Among them, there are more than a dozen projects challenging children’s mental and physical fitness, such as climbing bamboo poles, drilling holes in the ground, slides, etc. For my second job, I was engaged in graphic design in Shenzhen, which was the mirror image of Hong Kong. It was deeply influenced by European and Japanese design styles and mixed with Chinese regional style, forming the most vanguard graphic design culture in China at that time. I also began to learn typesetting and typeface in that atmosphere and learned the world history of design by myself. The third job was joining international 4A D’Arcy. At that time, the ECD in the Asia Pacific was Jimmy Lam, the late “godfather” of Huawen advertising last year. He paid great attention to promoting the company’s reputation through awards. He would give lectures every month and sometimes invited some European creative directors to train us. Besides, there were “monthly meetings” in D’Arcy at that time, and Jimmy would comment and analyse the award-winning works for us, which benefited me a lot.
I worked in international 4As for 18 years, from Beijing to Shanghai, from a designer to a creative director. Before founding The Nine Shanghai in 2016, I worked in Ogilvy Shanghai as Group Creative Director, responsible for Buick’s Automotive Business. Before that, I worked in DDB Shanghai as Creative Director and helped the agency win Volkswagen and McDonald’s businesses, also winning China’s first Gold Design Lion in Cannes. But for me, working in international 4As is more than just a good experience and memory. In particular, the outstanding founders of different networks, who are passionate about the field, have always inspired me with their great ideas. For example, William Bernbach proposes: “Advertising is not a scientific formula. It is a subtle and constantly innovative art.” David Ogilvy said playfully: “Never create an advertisement that you don’t want your wife and son to see.” “Reach for the stars. Even if it is futile, it is not one-handed mud”, said Leo Burnett. That’s why I love this industry. Creativity is a business and an adventure with clients, and the fascinating thing is that you never know what the next idea is going to be or what the next step is.
The Shawshank Redemption is a movie that has been at the top of the IMDB global movie list for many years. Why? Although people cannot escape from gravity and are firmly imprisoned on earth, we are born to yearn for freedom! I eventually wanted to have “jailbreak” - just like Andy, the protagonist in this movie. In May 2015, I chose to leave Ogilvy and 4A system and studied Directing at the New York Film Academy for half a year. When I returned in 2016, with fresher knowledge and rethinking of the industry, I established an independent creative agency, The Nine. I want to do more than just traditional advertising.
I have been longing for the opportunity to create works that are truly beyond advertising. Incredibly, I was invited to join Zhang Yimou’s team, the chief director of the Beijing Winter Olympics opening ceremony and Winter Paralympics, as the visual effect director and visual artist of the two opening ceremonies. I participated in the countdown projects of the Winter Olympics opening ceremony named Beginning of Spring and Tribute to the People together with China’s top digital technology team Blackbow. At the same time, I also created a technological and artistic installation called The Bloom as a tribute to the Winter Paralympics. It is an experiment of technology and art, an expression of the spiritual power of the disabled.
We’d love to hear more about how The Bloom came into existence. Was there a brief you had to respond to? What other ideas were you considering? What would you say is the main message behind The Bloom and what motivated you to explore it?
It was an art piece working with a group of disabled individuals dedicated to the Paralympics. The participants each picked their favourite paint colours, and we placed them in balloons with detonators. The brainwave-capturing device they wore sent their brain signals to trigger the balloons to detonate, causing the paints to splash onto a blank canvas. It is a tech and art experiment, an expression of the strength of the disabled.
The Bloom drew inspiration from something I did back in 2014 called Mind Art. Zhang Yimou really enjoyed it, so he asked me to bring the same concept to life in the Winter Olympics opening ceremony. Mind Art was more like a magical surrealist experiment that came from a thought I often had about the connection between the infinite universe and us tiny individuals and my attempts to visualise the power of minds. Mind Art is based on two theories: the widely accepted Big Bang theory and the ancient wisdom about the interactions between the universe and mankind. I believe everything that happens around us, everything we do, and every choice we make, though they seem random on the surface, in fact, contain all the information there is in the universe. In The Bloom, each participant is asked to pick their favourite paint colour and use a brainwave-capturing device to trigger the detonation. This is a subtle interaction between mankind and the universe. When the paints splash onto the canvas, it is a visualisation of every participant’s inner cosmos.
The process reflects the choice each individual makes. The final product contains all the interactive information between the individual and the universe. The theoretical basis of the Big Bang is also the visual device in this experiment. Zhang also invited Cai Guoqiang, a globally renowned artist, for brainstorming sessions with the team to calibrate this project to be more in line with the theme of the Winter Olympics. It turned our original plan upside down, and revamped The Bloom: twelve individuals with disabilities, creating a colourful smiley face around a circular canvas 8m in diameter, a symbol of friendship, peace, happiness, and togetherness.
By merging art and technology, you managed to brilliantly put people’s emotions at the forefront of your story. How did you approach writing this script, and what was most important to you in its execution?
First of all, we need to design impeccable installation art combined with the factory environment, and we need technical engineers to confirm every detail. Our team is looking for the most suitable disabled volunteers in China. I selected them through online video because of COVID-19, which was really too difficult. How to balance the expression of the disabled and the proportion of installation art? I spent a long time polishing and thinking about the shooting script. Film master Zhang Yimou reminded me that humanity is always the most important in the film. At the same time, the international art master Cai Guoqiang gave me many good suggestions, especially about the art installation. Thank them.
The film features 3D-generated projections of the set combined with subtitles explaining the brainwave idea technology. Have you worked with this technology before? And how challenging was it? Why have you chosen to stick to this format? How did you connect all these elements under a single narrative?
We also hired Li Daquan, a tech engineer and CUSOFT, a brainwave tech company, to support the team. With their help, we were able to bring the brainwave-controlled paint explosion to life.
How The Bloom works: we have people with disabilities wearing our brainwave controllers, which can capture the EEG (Electroencephalogram) signal of the wearer through the device's receptors. The captured EEG signal will be converted into the corresponding EEG parameter using the NeuroSky biometric algorithm, thus controlling the external detonating device. Our external device is a PLC (programmable logic controller) connecting to 61 detonators via relays and wires. Each detonator is placed into a balloon full of coloured pigments. Each person with disabilities can choose one or several balloons that they like. Then we will individually program the balloons via the PLC and match the balloons to the corresponding brainwave device. All they need to do is to focus, so they can convert their EEG signals to commands and trigger the detonation.
“When anyone can go viral on social media, do we even need awards to say what is good? Awards set a standard for the best craft, ideas and most relevant content. Without that, we are just chasing ephemeral trends like fifth graders on the soccer field.”
How selective are you in terms of choosing the projects you take on? What drives and motivates you?
Every creator, more or less, brings their own experience and life stories into their works. What I do involves multiple disciplines and it is hard to define. In the music video What We Wish that we did for Times China, a real estate company, I was the creative; in Customized Love Company, where we created a 12-metre tall Coca-Cola bottle split in half, I was the artist; in Safely Feel The Real World, a brand film for Durex x Volvo, I was the film director; in Guess Which Book Is It, designed for Zhihu and Yan Ji You Bookstore, I was the sculptor; in Handheld Concert, a project we did for Rokid, a portable speaker brand, I was the stage designer; in the Experience Museum of Miaojiang Patterns displayed at the Export Expo for Guiyang Government, I was the space designer; in Twelve Maids, the cultural and creative product designed for Daming Palace in Xi’an, I was the product designer; in Intelligent Head, a 15-ton installation I did for Vatti during the Appliance and Electronics Expo, I was the architect.
Our clients are diverse, and they come with various requests, from brand upgrades, package design, and art installation to spatial design, toy design and films. My role keeps changing and it allows me to get a taste of different lives. Why not! At The Nine, we only have nine full-time employees. We always strive to stay sharp and be at the forefront of things. We have done many different projects but they are far from enough.
You’ve received a great deal of international awards from the advertising industry, including several Cannes Lions, D&AD and OneShow Pencils,New York ADC Cubes, Clio, Andy and Epica Awards. How helpful have advertising awards been in your career, specifically in securing new work and clients?
I feel very grateful for my experiences with awards. I remember calling my mother when I won my first ever Cannes Lion.
Creative awards are a compendium of the best work, at any moment in time, captured by people that are at the height of their fields across multiple disciplines and backgrounds. They are not just about getting a trophy for your shelf or getting your name in lights; they are about capturing a cultural record of what is happening in design and advertising. And so what wins is crucial because we will look back on it in the future as an emblem of the time and the world. No pressure! When anyone can go viral on social media, do we even need awards to say what is good? Awards set a standard for the best craft, ideas and most relevant content. Without that, we are just chasing ephemeral trends like fifth graders on the soccer field.
I mentioned in a design seminar in China that it is hard to come up with good original ideas, but even harder to sell crazy ideas to clients, execute them and influence the market. Fortunately, many great customers have grown up in the Chinese market. Clients have the same starting line as ours, and sometimes they even look ahead of creators. In front of them, those old routines will not work. They are eager to see something different. They not only require accurate information to be conveyed but also desire to see ideas and concepts beyond imagination.
Especially after I founded The Nine, I am deeply touched and proud of it. We have created some breakthrough and influential cases for this market and won an international reputation. In 2018, the Handheld Concert, which was created for the Rokid portable smart speaker, was a pitch project. When we first submitted the plan to the customer from post-70s to post-90s, they all praised it as a good idea at the competitive presentation conference, and then we won the budget and implemented it. Finally, the work won two New York ADC Bronze squares and a Clio bronze award. In 2019, the MV What We Wish created for the 20th anniversary of Time Real Estate was also a pitch project. Due to the time limitation at that time, we only submitted a simple story script to the client. But the client liked the concept very much, so we developed and shot it, which received 5 million views and won 2 Clio Silver Awards, becoming one of the best real estate advertising films in China.
Jointly with Amber Shanghai, I directed the short film Safely Feel The New World. It’s a cross-category collaboration between two major international brands: Volvo and Durex. It is a gentle and exciting story. After the client finished watching, they increased the 12 million yuan media advertisement fee. It was released on White Day on March 14, 2021, and has attracted tens of millions of views and discussions in China. It won a D&AD pencil, Golden and Silver awards at the London International Advertising Festival, and Bronze awards at the Global One Show and ADC in New York.
The installation and short film The Bloom, created for the opening ceremony of the Winter Paralympics, won 3 ADC cubes in New York in 2022, and the national government officials passed the proposal. Real cases, good ideas, excellent execution, and winning international awards are still challenging for the current Chinese market. We are not doing nearly enough, but we are on the road; dancing on a wire. The necessary constraints and compromises can create creativity and give the power to find novel ideas and solutions in your work. A good idea with sincerity, heart, effort and time is better than any proposal skills in front of a bold and discernible client.
Would you say you had a clear vision of how to progress in your career? What was your strategy? What was the most practical advice you’ve ever received in your career?
Life itself is the best teacher. All the details of life, every romantic relationship, every trip, every dream, every loss, every good book, every art exhibition, every movie…
I like everything about our life on earth because everything inspires me, especially movies. When I was a child, I went to the cinema to see The Shaolin Temple. I felt that there was great energy in the cinema, allowing people inside to forget about cruel realities, including fear and death. On my way to studying filmmaking, I realised that I faced two problems, one for the audience and the other for myself. Almost all the creators want to find out from themselves what the problems are to be solved. And the main characters in their films always take the question with them on their way and finally solve them. Although, sometimes the answer is not satisfactory to everyone. However, because of the presence of the audience and the presence of people who like movies, we still have the obligation and responsibility to take the audience together with us creators during this exploration, to take our own problems with the audience, and to experience with the audience in the process, the meaning of life. This, I think, is the charm of filmmaking.
The film is a comprehensive art. For those of us who are creators or designers, who don’t have much luxury of time to enjoy daily life, the film is a powerful way to learn not only editing, music, costume, lighting, art, composition, storytelling, etc., but also more experience in life, even though it is virtual. I remember that the screenwriter’s training sessions were fun and useful, such as kangaroos, Beijing Opera characters, high heels, buttons etc… All these unrelated elements are to be combined and form an unexpected story. And with that, we need to set up multiple and complex characters, societies, politics, religions and philosophies and ultimately a grand world that no one has ever seen.
I often tell my colleagues in The Nine Shanghai that people are perfect AI, eyes, skin, ears, soul and every pore… You should feel everything freely and greedily, gaining more experience and information to create better works.
What do you think of the creative scene in China? Any talent you are particularly fond of and that we should be on the lookout for?
As the Chinese saying goes, ‘Walking among three people, I find my teacher among them.’ My leaders and colleagues have always been my best teachers. They come from different countries and regions, and the various cultural differences have greatly benefited me. I have to express my thanks to Graham Fink, Kweichee Lam, Francis Wee, Michael Dee… and so many others I have met. It is a privilege for me to spend some time with them. There is no denying that China, a rapidly changing market with the most diverse clients, is also my teacher.
What’s next for you?
Make a real feature film? Or become a full-time artist? I don't know. No matter what I do, I will never stop creating, and for me, that is one of the greatest joys in life.
Director: Jody Xiong
Writer: Zhang Yimou
Producer: Li Zhiwei
Producer: Yao Guoqing
Key Cast: Guo Xinnong Zheng Bo Hao Shanshan
Lead Artists: Jody Xiong
Lead Artists: Cai Guoqiang
Lead Artists: Joe Wang
Key Collaborators: Zhu Jinjing
Photography Director: Arden Tse
Chief Director: Zhang Yimou
Chief Producer: Shen Chen
CO Director: Zhu Jinjing