ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a historical review of Flash in China, as well as a look at the ways Flash practice and consumption relate to economic, social, and political trends. It discusses the problematic of Chinese shanke, as they are the most active visual narrators of Chinese youth culture in digital time and space and focuses on the characteristics and trends of aesthetic Flash in China since 1998. Flash have been both a symptom of the problems and a beneficiary of the needs of the whole animation spectatorship, which are derived from the ongoing sociocultural transformation. The practice of Chinese Flash animation in avant-garde works obviously proved its potential for relocating the artistic representation of multimedia practices, although at the time, it was still developing. Consequently, user understandings and perceptions of the Flash experience are strongly influenced by the digital interface of cyberspace and by the fact of cyberspace as a social space.
