CRI听力:Hannes Exhibition in Beijing

Sixty-eight-year-old Schmid is one of Switzerland's great visual storytellers. His ongoing exhibition employs an interactive installation that uses the iconic still and moving images out of Hannes Schmid's work around Formula 1.

The Swiss photographer claims he has already turned Formula One into a trans-cultural phenomenon and an art.

"It's based on the art of transformation. And I transform subjects, which have been rooted in a certain kind of culture, idea, visions or existence into a different world. What I did in Formula 1 was actually a transformation. I took a car that does everything and I moved it to the salt flats of Bonneville in a completely alien environment. And I established a land speed record. This is something a Formula 1 cannot do."

At the centre of the exhibition, five monumental mobile sculptures turn in perpetual motion, upon which photographs and moving images are projected.

Visitors are invited to play an active part in the creation of this work by synthesizing images of their own -- uploaded through smart phones and a digital app -- with those of the artist. Hannes Schmid explains:

"When you come now into my installation and you see these five huge planets that you can upload photographs out of your phone book of your smart phone into the center-piece. So I've been creating together with the people who upload the pictures a new artwork. And I never ever expected it's been six days now and thousands of photographs have been uploaded. It is amazing. And it is the biggest payback I ever got in my life."

The current exhibition in Beijing is the first showing of Schmid's work in Asia.

In fact, the photographer is closely connected to Chinese culture through family, which includes his Chinese wife and two children. He envisions Momentous as a synthesis of two cultural spheres and invites visitors to consider interweaving approaches to art and philosophy from different cultures:

"And of course I learned in the last 15 years since I married. I learned a lot about Chinese culture. So that's why I'm so close to this culture. And I have probably a much better understanding than a lot of people in the west how China functions and what's the problem of Chinese art."

Alex Gao, director of the Today Art Museum, called the Swiss photographer's exhibition a pioneering experiment, expressing the hope that visitors will enjoy their experience of integrating art with social media in China. The exhibition will run until July 17.