classmate links

Virtual collective by Karen

Digital cinema by Marc

Research Topic

Since it is the course of "Visual Culture and Digital Media", I will focus on the aspect of Visual Culture as Image-dominating culture and Digital Media as a mean of distribution on the Internet. In other words, I will focus on how the visaul culture being reinforced by the rise of the Internet, in the contemporary context.

I have pointed out some of the interests of my research paper in brain-storming. Please have a look of it.

Cultural Studies Reference

Those web with rich infomation of both cultural studies and contemporary philosophy.

Cultural Studies Central

Contemporary Philosophy, Critical Theory and Postmodern Thought

Internatioal Independent media: Indymedia

I have found it useful, although I am not sure whether it (the international scale) will be too board for my research paper about how the independent media distribute and perform their function on the Internet, in order to provide an alternative perspective for people in the contemporary social-political context. http://www.indymedia.org/en/static/about.shtml

Performance art 7 : exhibition value and making visible

This performance is a good example to illustrate the concept of "exhibition value"(or simply, drawing attention from mass audience), which is one of the key characteristics of the performance art, to my understanding. You can see this artist was just performing some daily movements, say eating in the public space with no different from those domestic helpers who enjoy their weekend in the public space (maybe the only essencial difference is that he has naked his upper body and bare feet). However, he has drawn lots of attention from the mass audience as well as mass media. The high exhibition value of performance art can be distinctive feature, as opposed to the small audience group of performing arts (usually at theatre which limit the number of audience).

Performance 6 : listen to the city under water

This performance is quite poetic. The artist explained that a city called "奉" was flood and now is under water because of the Three Gorges Dam Project in China. In response to this history, the artist destroyed a little part of the road and put a bowl of water on it, and let the audience lay on the road and listen to the water as well as the city under the water.

During the performance (to be more concrete, at the time the audience listen to water), a taxi drove towards the performance site and almost hit the bowl of water. At the moment, one other artist steped in front of the bowl of water, used his organic body to protect the artwork from the taxi. What I can see is the space politic between human body and social transportation.

Performance art 5 : criteria of choice of material

This artist tried to use glue to cover (or "erase) the symbol of the Hong Kong Police, so as to criticise the over-power of the power force. I have also asked them why they chose to use certain kind of material (say, here is the material of glue, and others include washing powderm water, soil, chalk and etc), they replied that their main concern about the materical used was whether the materical will be easily cleaned and the site can be easily be recovered. For example, when the material glue gets dry, it will become invisible and transparent, and thus the performance itself will not affect the physical appearance of the site after the show, and more importantly, the police then will not have evidence to charge those performance artists.

One more example of the amazing use of material is the use of water. One artist used water to write the Chinese word "拆"("demolish" in English) on the wall of Hong Kong City Hall, in where supposingly it is too grand and too exposing to write sometime on it. However, since he understood the powerful characteristic of water---visible and then invisible, any authority can never catch him regarding to any kind of law. How clever are the artists in the use of materials!!

Performance art 4 : stock as ass

This performanace is called "the stock market". Reminded that the Cantonese pronounciation of the word "stock" is similar to the body part of the "ass", and thus this performance artist played with this language confusion(he fed something into his ass) , in order to parody the stock market, as well as maybe the economic crisis of 1997.

Performance art3 : brain-washing writing

This group of performance artists (Project 226) used seven different colour pens to write some repeated naive sentences (i.e. I will never do something you don't like again, I will obey all your instruction from now on), as if we were in childwood being punished to copy writing something many times because we have done something wrong. This performance expressed the asymmetrical distribution of power---between the over-power authority(say police power) and passive citizens.

Performace art 2 : city and sickness

This performance artist explained that his choice of the use of medical materials showed his mental condition to the city he belong to. He feels SICK of Hong Kong. On each of the medical packs (please see the photo), he wrote down some of names of the most controversial and old street---that has already been so-called re-developed (or some may put it as being destoyed)---plus add the word "NEW" to each of those street name on the medical packs.

performance art 1: picnic in public space

This performance
intentionally "hijacked" the public space. The performance artists used chalks to write on the floor of the public space. Some of the words were "picnic in the public space". They were eating, playing music, sleep and etc in the site, in order to challenge the "over-authority" of Hong Kong Government , with regard to Public Space. I have asked those artists why the colour tone of thier decoration were mainly white, and replied that the use of white colour implied the colour (or maybe variety and richness) of the public space is fading, losing its colour. That maybe helps to show how they react to the demolishment of queen pier.

Performance art : my visual diary of the Queen Pier event (intro)

In this article, I would like to use my experience of the queen pier event on 14Oct07, in order to introduce some dimensions of performance arts are. On 14Oct07, some performance artists from different countries made their performance at the location just near the queer pier (which has been isolated by blocking) and in front of the Hong Kong City Hall, in response to the controversial issue of demolishing queer pier. Thus, this performance was more site-specific-like, in the sense that the performance took place at the specific site in where people are discussing and preserving.

Benjamin and Aura : the change in function of art

The time of now is commonly regarded as the realm of visual culture. Photography images, Television and films became the most dominating media in the contemporary time. In the article of The work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, Walter Benjamin has pointed out that the shift in function of art, from the time of artwork with aura (or simply, with unique physical object), to the realm of art that can be reproduced and without aura. The change in value of art can be considered as, from the religious value (or simply, cult value), to the social and political purposes.

That 's why I will put the body in performing arts and in performance art as my research paper. From my perception, the body in performing arts is full of devine "aura", like canons of paintings say Munch's The Scream. Because the audience will not be allowed to have physical touch with the performing body on stage, just as we are not permitted to touch canons of masterpieces. On the contrary, the body in performance art seems lose its aura, like the photos which is tactile and can be allowed to be touched. For example, on the event of queen pier (14Oct07), a performance artist Kith Tsang allows the audience to write down their wishes of Hong Kong on his Body.


"Performance art is a term usually reserved to refer to a kind of usually avant-garde or conceptual art which grew out of the visual arts...Unlike theatre, the performer is the artist, seldom a character like an actor, and the content rarely follows a traditional plot or narrative. The performance might be a series of intimate gestures or large-scale visual theatre, lasting from a few minutes to many hours; it might be performed only once or repeated several times, with or without a prepared script, spontaneously improvised, or rehearsed over many months." (excerpt from Wikipedia)

Utube as alternative media or propaganda

(sorry, for technical problem, i can't upload the video on the blog, please click the link)

Stardom and Queen pier protect

Indeed, at first I decide to find some videos about the protect of queen pier in U-tube. But then surprisingly, I have found that there is one video which is about a famous film star Chow Yun-fat who signed to save the queen pier. What interest me most is that this video is edited with both Chinese and English subtitle of Chow Yun-fat dialogue, even I cannot recognize whether he is the "real" Chow Yun-fat or not (although of course i am not interested in if he is the real one). But more importantly, we can see that this video image tried to use star (Chow Yun-fat) and circulate via the Internet, in order to address their political purposes. Some sorts of stardom in political use can be seen from this footage.

In addition, U-tube can act as an alternative network of producing and distributing video, as opposed to main-stream media like TV and radio. Users of U-tube can upload his/her footages and share them with others via the Internet. This can break the tradition of passive audience and the hegemony of the overwhelming mass media. For example, some online users may make fun with TV news report and add some texts or sound effect on it, so as to delegitimate (or challenge) the authority of the dominating mass media.

Michel Foucault --- Power and Kwnowledge

free texts of Foucault
This link provides lots of Foucault's text for FREE. For those who are interested in the issue of power and knowledge, sex and gender, don't miss the chance to read Foucault's article.

official web
Also provides some free article and information of Foucault.


The free sharing and distribution of knowledge (or simply information) on the Internet allows an more democratic exchange of knowledge, which is less possible being achieved by the traditional distribution of paid hard copies (e.g book, nwespaper and magazine). It seems that it inevitably touches the discussion of copyright and copyleft, as well as echo with the pursuit of the open source movement.

Zi Teng---strive for the human right of the commerical sex workers (HK)

Zi Teng


The Internet (or cyberspace) is more democratic, in the sense that even Commercial Sex Work (I will not prefer to use the word prostitution, since the word itself bear certain degree of bias and discrimination against sex workers) is illegal in Hong Kong, the government still not have power to interfere or then delete the website of Zi Teng. Apart from the grandnarrative of "morality" (if possible, I may have some discussion of it on my research paper, and reminded that some scholars like Michel Foucault will suggest that the conception of morality is highly related to the formation of knowledge and power), even the marginalised social group, say here the sex workers' organisation, have the power and automony to strive for their social need and human right, articulating and cirulating via the Internet. In other words, the freedom of speech is more possible to be expressed on the Internet, than any other media such as Television, Radio, newspaper, and etc. As Charles Cheung has put it in his article called web life, arts and culture, the commmerical pressure may affect the selection of the mass media (e.g. TV and radio), and thus they never allow people the degree of creative freedom offerred by the personal homepage.

independent media of Hong Kong

http://www.inmediahk.net/files/links/

This web is full of the discussion of many HK current social issues. However, there is no English version. But it provides lots of useful links of some other social organisation, alternative media, cultural studies blogs, etc.

Performing Arts and the online photo archive (HK)

http://www.popa-gala.net/popa_en.html

It is both for interest and my research paper. For those are interested in photography and peroforming arts, please have a look on this web. Since I have just finished a dance performance called which is about the bodily experience in city space, I would like to share with you. This online photo archive may give you a sense of what BODY in performing arts are, and later I will make an contract with Body in performance art.

Brain-storming

1. Hong Kong Independent Media and its online distribution, as opposed to main-stream dominating media
2. Focus on the context of Hong Kong, say some recent social issues, like the protect of the Queen pier and see how some individuals response with it on net
3. BODY being captured by camera and then being displayed on net
4. Change in function of art---e.g. value of BODY----performing art VS performance art, exhibition value VS cult value
5. My visual ethnography (or diary) on 14Oct2007, Queen pier, performance art event
6. introduce some Hong Kong active artists (as well their blogs) who favour social engaged art projects
7. power and image----making visible on the Internet
8. focus on the aspect of art as "institutional or social critic"