Cross-Cultural Roots for Media Practice: Chinese Aesthetics

6 hours total, over 3 sessions, online // $66, or $39 for members

  ** Pay-what-you-can option available.

Session 1: Mon Aug 23, 7pm - 9pm

Session 2: Wed Aug 25, 7pm - 9pm

Session 3: Fri Aug 27, 7pm - 9pm

Listed times are Pacific Time

Prerequisites:

• Suited for practicing media artists, curators, and writers who seek cross-cultural inspiration and want to expand their idea and approach.

• Participants must bring a project idea they are developing or reworking and that they wish to workshop in a group discussion format.

• To join the workshop, download the free Zoom Desktop Client. Go to https://zoom.us/download and click on the Download button under "Zoom Client for Meetings".

How do your questions, process, and aesthetics change if you re-imagine technology itself as having roots in, for example, Islamic culture? Chinese culture? Indigenous culture? 

This discussion-based workshop is intended to enrich your creative process and approach to media art by drawing inspiration from the particular histories, arts, sciences, philosophies, and everyday practices of so-called non-western cultures, using a method Laura Marks of the Substantial Motion Network developed for identifying Islamic roots of media art.

Bring your project ideas to the group, and discuss ways to explore your work-in-progress through specific cultural lenses. You'll study examples, and revise your own project ideas based on the feedback you receive from the instructors and other participants. The instructor Siying Duan will present examples from Chinese cultures. Between each session, you'll continue researching, editing, and refining your project for further feedback with the group.

About the instructor

Siying Duan teaches art and literature theory at the School for Liberal Arts, Shanghai University. Her research interest focuses mainly on the study of media arts from a perspective of Chinese Aesthetics. She has worked as a postdoctoral fellow at School for the Contemporary Arts, Simon Fraser University and earned her Ph.D. in Art Theory at Shanghai Film Academy, Shanghai University. She is also the producer of the podcast channel “Elephant says” at the platform Creative Disturbance and the editor of the bilingual journal Critical Theory. Her publications include several articles on Chinese Media Art research, comparative aesthetics, and art psychology.

Discounts

If you're taking even a couple of workshops, it's worth signing up for a Producer Membership (Basic or Extended):

https://www.vivomediaarts.com/become-a-member

You can also redeem the Video Bucks you earned by volunteering:

https://www.vivomediaarts.com/index.php/volunteer-vivo

Refunds

If you can’t make a class that you’ve signed up for, we appreciate time to alert wait-listed participants. VIVO presently asks that withdrawals from workshops be requested by emailing education@vivomediaarts.com at least 12 days prior to the workshop date, if you would like to receive a refund minus a $5 administration fee. Thanks!