CCR

My artist persona ‘Yellow Cordon’, which is extended into ‘Be careful of that yellow skin’. He is a crazy comedy star in his twenties, similar to David Bowie’s characters' Ziggy Stardust – an androgynous and bisexual alien singer’, and ‘Thin white duke – a pro-fascist drugster’. Cordon’s comedic brand – due to participatory culture, made his targeted audience a wider range without any barrier. In addition, ‘Yellow Cordon’ also describes the phenomenon of Asian hate in the international context. While, inside Chinese society, it implied the corrupted policies and rulers of the country. As Yellow Cordon has a Chinese identity, his representation has implicit satire on the Chinese government. This punk branding with an anti-establishment view would also naturally attract audiences from the western demographic. Examples of artists Ai Wei Wei and Xi Ran Jay Zhao are representative cases that gained more audience due to their expressions dealing with the Chinese Government’s regulation. Therefore, among the mass audience, Cordon’s brand also seeks an audience that has a unique taste of art and a good political sense.

For the political brand, a colour scheme of red and yellow is used in the ‘The Lemonist’ digipak to represent the Chinese flag, with the four stars surrounding Cordon’s devout photo, implying a mixture of warm happiness and pain of blood. Inspired by the symbolism of the Chinese flag, which suggested people, government, and revolution. The intention is to display a playful oriental representation under the Chinese government regulation, engaging with the audience that can recognize these conventions. Popular examples of the ‘Daily show’ and the ‘Colbert report’ are models that include conventions of political and racial jokes, which I took inspiration for Cordon’s character development.

The digipak design reveals more satire on abstract art yet more appreciation. The song cover includes a holed sprite bottle attached with balloon, and the disk art includes a holed bottle connected to microphone covers. Once again showing a ‘nihilist approach’ for the average audience, combining designing elements from contemporary artists Jeff Koons’s ‘Vacuum cleaner’ and Marcel Broodthaers’s ‘Mussels White Sauce’. Both artists display abstract taste that get accused of ‘fraud’, with their works having a high auction price. This artistic and avant-garde brand, might be too hard to understand by audience without a high level of education background. However, the objects on Digipak represent mass-production of ‘Made in China’, consumer behaviour, and suffocation inside a sealed container. These represent the issues dealing with abnormal living conditions in China, while it has a fancy appearance to attract the audience. Like Taylor Swift and her song ‘You need to calm down’– a pop star who is also a political activist for LGBTQ communities. This design gives an impression to the cover of ‘The Velvet Underground & Nico’ – a graphic banana by Andy Warhol. As I intended to mix the boundaries between pop, high culture, and politics, while using similar conventions of halftone pattern and highly saturated iconography to appeal to the audience.

Cordon’s iconic look, again amplifies the brand of juxtaposing politics, art, and popular culture. The yellow isolation suit represents the deep divide between rich and poor, high and low class. It goes against the traditional beauty and standard of clothes. In addition, a satire to the inefficient Chinese quarantine policies in the post covid era. His joker facial makeup, alludes to the character of Arthur Flick in ‘Joker’ (2019). Presenting a sad clown paradox that is reflected on his action of ‘messing with a condom and bleeding to death’. This represents the psychological issue of Chinese students. The conflicting nature of his song, both a happy rhythm and sad lyrics, engage the audience by creating alternative interpretations. Plus, the classical conventions of baroque pop – a fusion of rock and classical music. Further reflecting Cordon’s profane attitude – challenging the domination of communism, while being noble and niche. Similar to the band ‘1975’, their MV of the album ‘Being funny in a foreign language’ fuses cinematic narrative of nostalgic settings in the 90s, while incorporating an ‘art film’ vibe. Especially the elevation of low-level humour into eloquent things. In Cordon’s Mv, it utilizes artistic compositions from the Soviet art film 'The Colour of Pomegranate’ (which I took several biblical references), juxtaposes with an allusion (factory table scene) to the restaurant scene from Quentin Tarantino’s film ‘Pulp fiction’ – displaying an atmosphere of daily life, yet the action of ‘robbing’ presents a mixture of violence, lust, and vanity. Similar to our MV, the goat – a mythological symbol of succubus, parallel with the ultra-real condom to produce a binary opposition of different contexts and societies appearing together in the MV. All of these conventions engage with the audience as allusions and possible interpretations.

This hybrid of culture and symbols are further enhanced in the factory scene of the MV. The scene is full of abandoned objects in the local community, forming a field full of cultural symbols with extremely high verisimilitude (unlike the social media post). Such as, the squatting pot, commonly used in Chinese sanitary. The steel food plates, wok and iron are generally used by workers in daily bases. These objects, on their own, all give a realistic vibe. However, the context of the factory makes them surreal, like how Duchamp’s ‘Fountain’ (a urinal) transformed into a masterpiece by placing it in an art gallery. These intimate objects become cold and abstract, fulfilling the whole brand that is trying to convey the coexistence of oppositions. Hence, establishing a close yet distanced relationship between the audience and viewers, the monitor filter in his MV also conveys the same idea – the deceiving joker uses his disguise to entertain and kill. The convention of monitor effect alludes to the horror game ‘Five Nights at Freddy's’, where the innocent toy bear is actually a ghost who hunts for the guards. The Yellow Cordon hunts down the ‘Purple rain coat’, in a way like the scene in the film ‘American Psycho’ – introducing another key symbolic code – ‘blood’, where Patrick Bateman kills Paul Allen with an axe and rain coat (which in later part revealed as a fantasy). The psycho side of Cordon, can also be interpreted as he hallucinated the bloody slaughter. Just like in the film ‘Truman Show’, he is unable to achieve self-realization, a common phenomenon among the young Chinese audience. This structure from ‘The Lemonist’ referenced ‘The Killing Type' by Amanda Palmer (the usage of blood as the catalyst), and ‘911’ by Lady Gaga (the abstract presentation of psychological issues).

In comparison, Cordon’s Tweeter account includes a selection of memes, artworks, and humanistic care that displayed a general delight tone, like how Weird Al marketed himself on social media. It serves the purpose of entertaining the audience in this era of amusing to death, targeting young audience by strong visual stimuli or simple relevant memes that they are hooked on. The post of him on Vogue extreme beauty cover that only has a niche audience, this avant-garde fashion industry where postmodern beauty is separated from ordinary life, just like the Balenciaga Summer 23 fashion show. Unlike the ‘core value of presenting poor living conditions of average Chinese people, the outfit of Cordon created its our luxury fashion brand. This juxtaposition of trying to reach high social statues while representing the poor, reflects on the complexity of his character. In addition, the McDonald’s Uncle figure should be showing humor, but instead a fake and creepy fear took over. The unconventional Durex condom advertisement, combining sex education – ‘condomism’ and playful actions that are not presented by typical Chinese parents. These things add up to form a hyperreality and commerciality for his character, which seems like a young boy like an arrogant god is engaging with his audience in reality, but still through fake and artistic filters that block out the original appearance. The original intention is to create hyperreality, but as the deceiving side of the character grows, all of the poorly edited photoshop effects make the audience doubt the authenticity of the advertisements. Portraying the artist as a true person with a variety of emotions, but unreliable narrations. This shows an issue with the verisimilitude of Cordon’s brand, there are no real connections and group photos with other organizations. For example, the existence of ceremonies and major music awards.

“If you cling to your life, you will lose it; but if you give up your life for me, you will find it. -Matthew 10:39. This biblical reference is used various times in the Digipak and social media. Thus, creating a religious part that clashes into his brand, and challenging the authenticity of Christianity (by his jokes about God on his social media page). I see Cordon as an aggregation of conflict and identity from different societies, and opposition between scientific materialism and idealism. Along a photo of Yellow Cordon holding a bible in his left hand, and an earth model in his right hand. Yellow Cordon represents this juxtaposition, including a religious heart while wearing a political skin. He is an immature young man saying dirty jokes on the internet in his twenties, representing the most common teenager behaviour, yet expressing some of the most unspeakable depression in the People's Republic of China. He is a symbol of the psychological issue dealing with the generation-Z, the information bombardment that produces conflicting people inside society.