Artist Ho Rui An and Curator Zian Chen in Residence at DKU

The Artist-in-Residency program is organized by DKUNST Art on Campus curated by prof. Zairong Xiang, co-sponsored by the Division of Arts and Humanities and the Humanities Research Center.

On Tuesday April 11th, internationally renowned artist Ho Rui An will give a public lecture on his artistic practice; together with his collaborator Zian Chen they will also introduce their current research project titled “Drawing the Lines: Politics and Technology in China’s Industrial History.” Students will have opportunity to join their team as research assistants. Curious about how artists do research and what is a “research-based artistic practice”? Interested in the history of textile industry in our own Yangtze River Delta region? Join us on Monday!

Time: 3:45 to 5:50 Tuesday, April 11th 2023
Location: AB 3107

Biographies

Ho Rui An is an artist and writer working in the intersections of contemporary art, cinema, performance and theory. Across the mediums of lecture, essay and film, his research examines systems of governance in a global age. He has presented projects at the Bangkok Art Biennale; Asian Art Biennial; Gwangju Biennale; Jakarta Biennale; Sharjah Biennial; Kochi-Muziris Biennale; Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin; Kunsthalle Wien; Singapore Art Museum; Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven; and Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media, Japan. In 2019, he was awarded the International Film Critics’ (FIPRESCI) Prize at the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, Germany. In 2018, he was a fellow of the DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program.

Zian Chen collaborates with artists and writers to develop alternative frameworks for thinking and speculation. He is one of the founding members of Pailang Museum of Settler Selves (2022–), an editor-in-residence for Compost in ICA NYU Shanghai (2021–2022), as well as one of the editors for Made in Public (2022) and Arrow Factory: The Last Five Years (2020). He has also curated Production Fever 2008: Study Materials in Nida Art Colony, Nida (2022). In 2020–21, he was one of the founding editors for Heichi Magazine, an online journal for contemporary art published weekly in Chinese and English.

    PROGRAM

PART I: Ho Rui An’s Artist Talk (3:45 – 4:45 pm)

Title: Ways of (Not) Seeing “the Economy”

In recent years, the projects of Ho Rui An have sought to understand what it means to observe the thing we call “the economy”. Through works that have examined such seemingly abstract and expansive phenomena as financial capitalism and the so-called socialist market economy in Reform-era China, his artistic practice seeks to produce knowledge and make arguments that returns them to the body. This presentation explores the ways that economic abstractions come to be embodied and proposes embodied modes of observation that question what it is exactly we talk about when we talk about “the economy”.

PART II: Presentation of the Research-based Art Project at DKU (5:00 – 5:50 pm)
Title: Drawing the Lines: Politics and Technology in China’s Industrial History

Since 2018, Ho Rui An and Zian Chen have collaborated across various projects researching the material networks and geopolitical imaginaries that have animated the regions of East and Southeast Asia. Expanding the narrative developed in Ho’s recent film, Lining (2021), which examines the rise and decline of the textile industry in Hong Kong, their residency at Duke Kunshan focuses on the development of the industry within the Yangtze River Delta before its displacement to Hong Kong in the late 1940s as well as the subsequent “return” of industrial capitalism to the mainland following the launch of China’s economic reforms.

In this presentation, they will share their preliminary observations gathered from their ongoing archival and field research. In considering the shifting historical relations between labor, technology, and capital in China, they identified a recurrent theme especially present in the textile industry: the politicization and depoliticization of technology. From the import of Western machinery as a means of national salvation in the early twentieth century to Maoist-era experiments in collapsing the distinction between manual and technical labor to the restructuring of state-owned enterprises under the pressures of technological displacement during the Reform era, the lines of politics and technology continually meet and part along a historical trajectory that has culminated in China’s deeply unsettled postsocialist condition.

The speakers will also share details for an open call for participants to join their research between August and September this year.

Lining (2021), Ho Rui An, 4K video (Courtesy of the Artist)

Open Call for Two Student Reporters for an Art Project

“A Matter of Trust” – an art project

Are you interested in contemporary art and want to gain relevant experience? Do you want your writing to be exposed to international audiences?

The Department of Culture and Education of the German Consulate General in Shanghai and Professor Xiang Zairong, Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature and Associate Director of Art at Duke Kunshan University, are currently working on a joint art project with the artist collective Ci Zhi 刺纸. In two workshops that will be held in Shanghai and Kunshan in February and March, the artists will work on a printed publication and the production of a drifting book bag reflecting stories and matters of trust in our society. Their artistic contributions will be part of the Kultursymposium Weimar 2023 (https://www.goethe.de/prj/ksw/en/index.html).

Application Deadline: 12 February, 2023 by 23:59 BJT

Continue reading “Open Call for Two Student Reporters for an Art Project”

XR Workshop #3: UI Design with Figma

Join HRC Anthropocene XR Lab in our online workshop [UI Design with Figma], #3 of the XR workshop, seminar, and hackathon series! The keynote speaker Qingyang He, Media and Arts major from the class of 2024, will introduce the Figma interface and two popular features of Figma for UI design, vector networks and gradient mask. She will also present a UI case study of lightweight drawing softwares and explain the creative applications of UI design principles.

Time: July 14, 8-9pm China time
Zoom: 918 3678 2672
Passcode: 172288

About the Anthropocene XR Lab: we focus on projects that explore both living and hypothetical scenarios of human interactions with the environment using XR technologies. We are interested in how, in combination of physical and virtual environment, we can expand our understanding of human beings and nature. For more information, please visit https://sites.duke.edu/dkuhumanities/projects/anthropocene-xr-lab/.

 

人文研究中心旗下的人类世XR实验室将举办XRVR/AR)研讨会及黑客马拉松活动系列的第三场线上工作坊:【使用Figma设计UI界面】。来自 DKU 2024 媒体艺术专业的主讲人何清扬将介绍Figma界面的使用,以及UI设计中最常用到的Figma两大功能突破:矢量图标绘制和渐变效果遮罩。她还会为大家带来轻量化绘图软件UI设计的案例分析,并阐释案例中的设计法则能怎样被运用于创意实践。

Third Space Lab is Seeking Digital Media Assistants

DKU Humanities Research Center’s Third Space Lab is recruiting undergraduate Digital Media Assistants, one for print and one for video, to support Dr. Emma Chiocca & Dr. Stephanie Anderson on a multilingual book and video project on stories for children.

Applications due date has been extended to April 18, 2022. Please submit them to eugenie.chao@dukekunshan.edu
See applications under each position.

Position title: Digital Media Assistant (Print)
Position job description: DKU Humanities Research Center’s Third Space Lab is recruiting a Digital Media Assistant (print) to support Faculty on an interdisciplinary and multilingual project. This position requires expertise in formatting text and images, text editing, and assistance in managing the sharing and distribution of content via social media. The project involves creating an “anthology” of short stories for children in multiple languages. This role will use tools and technologies associated with editing text and images. This role will also require excellent communication and interpersonal skills, to provide the best possible experience for everyone involved in the project. This position can be done remotely.

Learn more about the position:  TSL Digital Media Assistants – Anthology – Job Description
TSL – Student Worker – Print – Application


Position title: Digital Media Assistant (Video)

Position job description: DKU Humanities Research Center’s Third Space Lab is recruiting a Digital Media Assistant (video) to support Faculty on an interdisciplinary and multilingual project. This position requires expertise in video recording and editing and assistance in managing the sharing and distribution of products via social media. This role will use tools and technologies associated with creating, editing, displaying and communicating digital media, ideally including film, audio, subtitles (English and Chinese) and images. This role will also require excellent communication and interpersonal skills, to provide the best possible experience for everyone involved in the project. Due to the nature of the recordings and interactions, the Digital Media Assistant will need to be located in Kunshan for at least the duration of the recording process (until the end of the Spring 2022 semester). The editing can be done remotely.

Learn more about the position:  TSL Digital Media Assistants – Anthology – Job Description
TSL – Student Worker – Video – Application

 

Superdeep #9: “Benjamin’s Aura & NFT” (Tian Leiyuan) | Fri, Mar 11, 6:30pm

Fri, Mar 11, 6:30 pm
IB 2026 | Zoom 69 79 89 79 69

Even the blockchain can be Superdeep, as our final meeting this session will show: Tian Leiyuan (‘23, Media Arts) will discuss with us her work on “Benjamin’s Aura and NFT”.

As always, everyone is welcome to join; no prior knowledge of philosophy (or law) is required. And, as always, snacks and refreshments will be served at the meeting.

– – – – – – –
For more information on DKU’s Superdeep workshop,
see https://sites.duke.edu/dkuhumanities/superdeep/
or contact Nathan Hauthaler.

Media and Arts Speaker Series | Lab as Methodology. Giving Hybrid Arts a Space for Experimentation and Research

The Media & Arts Speaker Series at Duke Kunshan University is a bi-weekly event that invites leading practitioners in media and arts to speak about their work and practice and engage with our DKU community.

The forth miniseries of talks looks at the concept of the lab, both as a philosophy and a methodology to see how these innovative approaches have impacted and transformed the production of culture, art and society.

The lecture scheduled on Friday April 23th, 2021 at 6pm China Central time features art historian and curator Regine Rapp and curator Christian de Lutz. They will dissect for us some of the cultural production and experimentation they have conducted within the context of their Berlin-based gallery and community space, Art Laboratory Berlin. This series is organized and hosted by Prof. Benjamin Bacon and Prof. Vivian and supported by Arts and Humanities and the Humanities Research Center at Duke Kunshan University. This event is open to the public.

Time and Date: Friday April 23th, 6pm China

Location: Duke Kunshan Innovation Building 1042

Zoom: 262-835-7204

Lab as Methodology.
Giving Hybrid Arts a Space for Experimentation and Research

Through sustained curating programs, Art Laboratory Berlin offers a laboratory for embodied experience supporting new forms of art and cultural exchange in the 21st century with exhibitions, workshops, performances, conferences and publications. In addition to supporting artists working at the intersection of art and the life sciences, we also seek to create a space for encounters between artists and scientists, and for hybrid arts and the public. To this end, Art Laboratory Berlin has organized and supported artists-in-residence programs in partnership with institutions such as the TU Berlin Institute of Biotechnology and the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science. The space also presents pop up lab events bringing together artist with local DIY communities. Art Laboratory Berlin takes a hands-on approach to cultural and knowledge production, building communities around new ways of thinking and doing, reaching diverse audiences in the process. The laboratory is an Entre-Lieu, a hybrid space for human and nonhuman collaboration. In this talk, we will illustrate our philosophy and approach through a series of recent projects and programs.

https://artlaboratory-berlin.org/html/eng-Camille-Diaries.htm
https://artlaboratory-berlin.org/html/eng-Mind-the-Fungi.htm

https://artlaboratory-berlin.org/html/eng-publications.htm

Continue reading “Media and Arts Speaker Series | Lab as Methodology. Giving Hybrid Arts a Space for Experimentation and Research”

Media and Arts Speaker Series | Capturing Reality

The Media & Arts Speaker Series at Duke Kunshan University is a bi-weekly event that invites leading practitioners in media and arts to speak about their work and practice and engage with our DKU community.

The fourth miniseries of talks looks at the concept of the lab, both as a philosophy and a methodology to see how these innovative approaches have impacted and transformed the production of culture, art and society.

The lecture scheduled on Friday April 9th, 2021 at 6pm China Central time features artist, photojournalist and co-founder of Sensorium Matthew Niederhauser. He will share with us his insights in the emerging area of XR technology and its creative potential and introduce some of his works in this area. This series is organized and hosted by Prof. Benjamin Bacon and Prof. Vivian and supported by Arts and Humanities and the Humanities Research Center at Duke Kunshan University. This event is open to the public.

Location: Duke Kunshan Innovation Building 1042

Zoom: 262-835-7204

Capturing Reality

http://www.sensorium.works/

https://www.onx.studio/

Matthew Niederhauser will introduce and break down emerging creative possibilities of emerging XR technologies and how they shaped projects from Sensorium, an experiential studio he cofounded in New York. Matthew’s artistic practice draws from a diverse range of influences, including journalism, cinema, theater, and game design, all of which pushed his expanded sense of experimentation and how he integrates concepts across both digital and physical spaces. He believes that such an interdisciplinary focus is now needed to take immersive storytelling to new imaginative and communicative potentials. Continue reading “Media and Arts Speaker Series | Capturing Reality”

Media and Arts Speaker Series | V2_Lab for the Unstable Media

The Media & Arts Speaker Series at Duke Kunshan University is a bi-weekly event that invites leading practitioners in media and arts to speak about their work and practice and engage with our DKU community.

The fourth miniseries of talks looks at the concept of the lab, both as a philosophy and a methodology to see how these innovative approaches have impacted and transformed the production of culture, art and society.

The lecture scheduled on Friday March 26th, 2021 at 6pm China Central time features V2_Lab for the Unstable Media Lab Director Boris Debckere and Curator Florian Weigl. They will present their philosophy, methodology, research and practice at the intersection between art, technology and society. This series is organized and hosted by Prof. Benjamin Bacon and Prof. Vivian and supported by Arts and Humanities and the Humanities Research Center at Duke Kunshan University. This event is open to the public.

Location: Duke Kunshan Innovation Building 1042

Zoom: 262-835-7204

V2_Lab for the Unstable Media

https://v2.nl

V2_, Lab for the Unstable Media is an interdisciplinary center for art and media technology in Rotterdam (the Netherlands). V2_ presents, produces, archives and publishes research at the interface of art, technology and society. Founded in 1981, V2_ offers a platform for artists, designers, scientists, researchers, theorists, and developers of software and hardware from various disciplines to discuss their work and share their findings. In V2_’s view, art and design play an essential role in the social embedding of technological developments. V2_ creates a context in which issues regarding the social impact of technology are explored through critical dialogue, artistic reflection and practice-oriented research. Continue reading “Media and Arts Speaker Series | V2_Lab for the Unstable Media”

Media and Arts Speaker Series | Curating the Curatorial: A Lab for “Applied Curating”

The Media & Arts Speaker series at Duke Kunshan University is a bi-weekly event that invites leading practitioners in media and arts to speak about their work and practice and engage with our DKU community.

The fourth miniseries of talks looks at the concept of the lab, both as a philosophy and a methodology to see how these innovative approaches have impacted and transformed the production of culture, art and society.

The lecture scheduled on Thursday February 25th, 2020 at 5:30pm China Standard Time features the Director and Curator of the Tongji D&I Curatorial Lab Aric Chen. This series is organized and hosted by Prof. Benjamin Bacon and Prof. Vivian, and supported by Arts and Humanities and the Humanities Research Center at Duke Kunshan University. This event is open to the public.

Time and Date: 5:30pm China time, Thursday February 25th, 2021 / 4:30am EST

Location: Duke Kunshan Innovation Building 1042

Zoom: 262-835-7204 Continue reading “Media and Arts Speaker Series | Curating the Curatorial: A Lab for “Applied Curating””