ABSTRACT
As the global community anxiously monitored the progress to combat the spread of SARS during the spring of 2003, powerful images were being created, compiled, and transmitted in cyberspace. Whether the imagery was in the form of photojournalism or artistic responses to the outbreak, the virtual realm became increasingly important in the face of official quarantines and self-imposed restrictions on human movement and contact. In such uncertain times, when nations were grappling with the limitations of their own abilities to deal with the threat posed by the coronavirus, people hungered for accurate information to help them protect themselves and their local communities. Technology became a prosthetic force which supplemented bodily contact and the internet was an environment through which one could explore and connect to humanity. Virtual public spaces created on the internet became not only a surrogate realm for direct human physical contact (e.g., informational websites, instant messaging, chat groups, bulletin board systems, and online shrines for fallen healthcare workers (Chan 2003)) but an important outlet for creative expression. On May 21, 2003, a special online anti-SARS exhibition at the Shanghai Art Museum was posted on the internet (SAM)1 at a time when large social and cultural gatherings were shunned in the People’s Republic of China.
