"Against the explosion of 'self-expression' among many 'avant-garde' artists, 'New Measurement' proposed a principle of 'elimination of individuality', which has become the basis of their entire research. In this group whose membership has consisted, at different periods, of three-to-six artists, no room has been allowed for individual or personal ideas, experiences, and expressions. Instead, it undertakes collective work operating mechanically (measuring, calculating and drawing...) strictly respecting the collaboration rules based on 'numerical relationships' between things. The result of their work, then, consists of a large amount of rules, formulas and diagrams, signs and manuscripts, which record the discussions, calculations and presentations. Such a process, more importantly, has given birth to a 'non-art language' (or a 'quasi-language') situated between letters, mathematics and linguistic research. Hence, ideological problems or troubles have been transcended and even eliminated by a purely numerical, rational and un-individual research and the invention of its language."
–Hou Hanru, 1996
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