LOADING…(2019) examines the digital imagery of Earth's satellite views on WeChat's opening screen. The work explores the transient nature of splash screens that briefly mask data-loading processes. Inspired by Tan Mu's personal connection to WeChat—a pivotal communication tool connecting her with family and friends in China—the painting captures the transition from NASA's Blue Marble to a Chinese satellite image. Since 2011, WeChat has become integral to Chinese daily life, representing broader digital and cultural shifts. The replacement of NASA's Earth photograph with a Chinese satellite image marks a significant transformation in geopolitical narratives and technological sovereignty, symbolized by the shifting focal point from Africa to China. The artwork invites contemplation of how technology, memory, and cultural symbolism intersect in our digital age. Through detailed artistic interpretation, it examines how instant digital imagery shapes perceptions while highlighting the evolving dynamics of global communication. LOADING...ultimately offers a nuanced perspective on the relationship between digital interfaces and cultural identity in modern connectivity.

Q: What inspired you to create LOADING…?

Tan Mu: It really comes from my own experience of growing up alongside communication technology. I witnessed the entire early life of WeChat, including the moment when its loading screen changed from NASA’s Blue Marble image to imagery produced by China’s own Fengyun satellite. That change stayed with me.

In 2006 I left home to attend high school in Beijing, and in 2011 I moved to the United States for university. Since then, most of my relationships with family and close friends have been sustained through digital communication. When I first arrived in the U.S., WeChat did not yet exist. I relied on prepaid international data plans and Skype, and every conversation felt slightly delayed, slightly fragile.

When WeChat appeared and gradually evolved from text messages to voice notes and then video calls, it quietly reshaped my daily life. It collapsed distance and time zones. It allowed emotional continuity across continents. Over time, it stopped feeling like a tool and started to feel like an extension of how intimacy worked.

LOADING… began as a way to look at this shared logic behind technologies that have become almost invisible through daily use. The loading screen, with its shifting satellite imagery, felt like more than a technical pause. It became a metaphor for how identity, memory, and belonging are mediated through systems that promise connection while constantly reminding us of distance.

Q: Besides personal experience, how does the satellite perspective imagery relate to your artistic practice?

Tan Mu: The satellite perspective has been central to my work for a long time. I think of it as an extension of my own vision rather than a detached viewpoint. Looking at the world from above allows me to think about scale, infrastructure, and the invisible systems that shape everyday life.

LOADING…, painted in 2019, was one of my earliest works engaging directly with satellite technology. It documents a very specific moment in China’s space and communication history, when WeChat replaced NASA’s Blue Marble image with one captured by the Fengyun 4A satellite. That change happened in 2017, and it marked a subtle but meaningful shift in perspective.

For years, the startup image had been borrowed from a global visual archive. Replacing it with an image produced by China’s own satellite was not only about technical capability. It reflected a broader assertion of presence within digital and technological space. In my work, the satellite view is never just about geography. It is about how technology reframes our sense of position, agency, and participation in a shared world.

Q: You often describe communication technology as an emotional link between people. How do you explore this in your practice?

Tan Mu: My interest in communication systems has never been purely technical. What draws me in is the emotional weight carried by these systems. LOADING… was an early point where this became clear to me. It looks at satellite technology not only as infrastructure, but as something woven into daily feelings of connection, absence, and waiting.

These systems transmit data, but they also carry voices, pauses, misunderstandings, and longing. They connect people while constantly reminding them of separation. That tension runs through works like NO SIGNAL, Off, and Eruption, where communication both succeeds and breaks down.

In more recent works such as Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas and the Signal series, my attention shifted toward the physical infrastructures beneath the surface, especially submarine cable networks. What moves through them is not just information. It is memory, culture, and accumulated human presence. I see communication technology as something that links people emotionally precisely because it is never neutral or seamless.

Q: How did you translate this fleeting digital experience into the static medium of painting?

Tan Mu: The loading screen is something we encounter almost without noticing. It is a moment of waiting, suspension, and quiet anticipation. I was interested in slowing that moment down and giving it physical weight.

By painting it in oil, I turned something temporary into something enduring. The shift from NASA’s Blue Marble to an image taken by a Chinese satellite is not simply a software update. It reflects changes in how the world is seen, represented, and claimed. In the composition, the two images face each other symmetrically, allowing that tension to remain visible.

The background may appear uniform at first, but it is built from countless layered dots. I think of them as fragments of data, memory, and signal, similar to the way digital systems hide complexity behind smooth interfaces. For many people, this loading screen has become part of daily life, repeated thousands of times without reflection. By fixing it in paint, I wanted to create space to feel what usually passes too quickly, and to reflect on the invisible structures shaping our sense of connection.