Cross cultural art: a contemporary approach to traditional chinese landscape painting

Is it possible today in the age of globalization to create new modes of cross-cultural art based on a comprehensive understanding of one culture without being accused of mimicking or exploiting another? This paper includes the presentation of an example of contemporary western video art that attempts to explore cross-cultural influences between the West and the East, and to discuss this question from the western perspective. Proceeding from Chinese thought and aesthetics, the traditional concept of landscape painting “Shan-Shui-Hua” (“mountain-water painting”) is recreated within the new western genre of the “video-painting” as a single (flat) screen video installation. Confronting the tools of modern computer visualisation with the East Asian concept creates an artistic artefact counter-pointing and reflecting both positions.