Social media kingdom

Chinternet Ugly art exhibition examines how China has become its own online centre of gravity

Consider these remarkable figures: China has 802 million internet users, 431 million micro-bloggers, 788 million digital smartphone users and four of the ten largest global internet companies. This colossal user base – combined with a handful of ubiquitous online platforms and e-commerce giants including WeChat, Tencent and Alibaba – results in cultural currents that flow at a blinding pace, spreading and evolving far more rapidly than on the rest of the web and creating a distinct internet culture that some have dubbed the "Chinternet".

Utilising this space as a site for cultural negotiation, critique and play, the artists presented in the group exhibition Chinternet Ugly at Manchester, England's Centre for Chinese Contemporary Art probe how the sheer volume of digital users in China ensure that the country is becoming its own digital centre of gravity, with the power to create its own sphere of influence over network norms.