The experiences we once had have lead us to come together again today, although now, we are not the same people who living in an era lacking in material needs, used to fantasize about realizing the proletariat’s liberation of the entire world. Today, proletarians have been rescued and live protected in a world that has as its central theme the eradication of poverty. Proletarians are instead attempting and succeeding in shaking off the definition of the individual’s social class. We, who once belonged to the proletarian class, have misplaced the definition of social class, becoming individuals from anew. But the collective consciousness molded by the proletarian class remains in a corner of the present-day self-struggle. It is just in this corner that a powerful call vaguely exists… Is it the call of emotions? The call of the collective spirit? Or the call of some sort of “form” or “mould”? This kind of call has created in us a kind of impetuous collective consciousness. We gather together, and through a continuous series of discussions we try to find an answer, advancing at the same time towards the direction of the clear results of real life’s various needs. But the continued discussions blur our individual solutions and our original direction, the enthusiasm of the discussions still prevailing. What does this imply in today’s world? It implies that we need a kind of collective form that transcends the individual, by which the self will not find itself restrained or enslaved ever again, and the self-consciousness will never be tormented by the fundaments of utilitarianism… On the contrary, the self finds itself renewed and the self-consciousness strides beyond the borders of the self, making us aware of the strength that arises from the collective form.

We have personally experienced in the later part of the political movements a stage of formalism lacking in content, and from within this apparent “form” of the social movements we have gained fresh notions of aesthetics. This is a kind of political outgrowth; it is a “form” or a “mould” that has arisen from the degeneration of politics, something we have named “polit-sheerform”. Polit-sheerform does away with the political core and content; it is a kind of mobilization, a kind of mood, a perfect form that does not harm the practice. At the same this practice is a sort of fictitious practice. It has already lost the fighting spirit of practice, letting it become sheer form. This form contains imagination and creativity. As for real society’s practice, it is just a kind of political attitude. In contrast with the interactive qualities of popular culture and art, polit-sheerform is a kind of concession. Polit-sheerform takes interest in the historical decline. Polit-sheerform itself is born of this sort of decline. Just as the contents of history are emptied, the polit-sheerform begins to become active, to develop and expand. As for the problem of historical legacy, many people claim they want to get to its essential contents, but the polit-sheerform places importance instead in the void historical forms. What the polit-sheerform obtains is knowledge of the state of historical decline. From the practices of socialism and the process of its shift we see this sort of political sheer form, which seems to be showing us a different sort attitude towards global culture, and we bring up the idea again that what socialism aspires to is not the restoration in today’s society of those failed practices, but the maintenance of a visual space and an attitude of positive thinking that keeps the world in mind. For us, socialism is not any longer a sort of social practice, but is instead the memories, the legacy and the experiences that we are unable to experience again in the contemporary world.

Today’s socialism- a new socialism- should be a space for the imagination. This space keeps distant from social practices that have developed by means of capitalist forces.

The ghost of the once reverberating communism has flown away, leaving behind a “form” that can be never wiped away.

And behind us, there is only one wall!

Hong Hao, Xiao Yu, Song Dong, Liu Jianhua, Leng Lin