For Cai Guo-Qiang, a man whose reputation is founded on explosive artworks, 2008 has been a bit of a blast. Following a popular retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum in New York, he designed the fireworks for the opening and closing ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics (for which he was director of visual and special effects), including the infamous Footprints of History, which were broadcast to the world as if live in the form of a CGI montage. Guo-Qiang argues that this is of no consequence, as the fireworks are, in fact, two artworks – the one experienced as an ephemeral live event and the ‘concept’ experienced with the aid of CGI. So there.