Broadcast at the Same Time (1999.12.31 night) (2000) is a video installation consisting of 26 CRT televisions positioned in a circle, each displaying a news clip from a different corner of the globe. The news clips, all from the last day of 1999, were collected from the internet by artist Zhang Peili. Visitors are invited to step into the centre of the installation to experience the commotion of evening news reports from the televisions. The work is set against the backdrop of the new millennium, an age of globalisation in which flows of data and information were no longer restricted by political or geographical borders. The array of images and sounds is a metaphor for a world in which technology is omnipresent and developing at breakneck speed—a precursor to the age of information overload in which we live today. Also, by using video to capture and re-create moments of temporality, the installation demonstrates how video as a medium can manipulate time-sensitive material.

In 1994, he moved away from painting to pursue new mediums, such as video, text, sound and mechanical installations, and photography. In 2003, he established the Department of New Media at the China Academy of Art, the first of its kind among Chinese art academies.

Zhang has participated in major international exhibitions including the Venice Biennale, Lyon Biennale, Sydney Biennale, Gwangju Biennale, and Busan Biennale. He has also held solo exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Art Institute of Chicago, and Municipal Museum of Contemporary Art in Ghent. His works are held in numerous collections, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Tate Modern in London, the Guggenheim Museum in New York, Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Art Institute of Chicago, and M+ in Hong Kong.