Gao Shiqiang, Lu Lei, and Gao Shiming are still students searching for a role as artists. They are fascinated by the Lost Generation, the artists who flourished during the 1980's when the Government eased their heavy handed control of the arts. After the crackdown at the end of the decade, the artists who were destroyed became the Lost Generation. In their portfolio, the three collaborators quote a poem of Hai Zi, a poet who committed suicide.

ON THE WAY We are the loyal sons of distance Every morning we depart, the mind ablaze The heart weighed down with care and bitterness We go, according to the rhythmic love While the songs escaped backward Footfalls echo in the memory.

No privacy here, the installation "Visible and Invisible Lives" makes clear. Arrayed within a framed outline are a set of monitors, a window on one, a door on another, a foot entering on a third, all of which can be understood as details of a room. The trio were thrilled that viewers took their room as something real, and acknowledged its implications. During the short time together, the students did more interviewing than London. They wanted confirmation that Chinese video artists are more committed politically than their western counterparts. Articles about Western media artists have appeared in Chinese art magazines, and the students wanted to know everything about the works they had not seen. Somehow they had gotten their hands on a pirated copy of Bill Viola's "Passing," which they liked very much, but his installations were beyond their book learning. A plane ticket to a major museum would be a boon to these information sponges.