讲座预告 | 技术环宇中超越人类的展演

About the Lecture

A theater work in Japan is performed with robots (Oriza Hirata). A visual artist fills one of the world’s largest museum atriums with floating balloon-like “algorithmic machines” that produce scents (Anicka Yi). A complex machine made up of glass jars filled with organic matter (inc. fruits, metal, cooked food etc.) is connected to matrixes via plastic tubes and electrical wires, which virtually mix organic matter with semiconductors in different combinations in order to generate electricity (Jean Katambayi Mukendi). Since the turn of the millennium and from all corners of the globe, galleries and museums, festivals, theaters and even the sky and ground of the earth has been invaded by a battery of new performers that pose little resemblance to homo sapiens: bacteria and viruses, fluids and vibrations, fungi and plants, computers, blinding lights, robots and machines, drones and satellites. This talk tries to understand this turn towards “posthuman performativity,” against the backdrop of the Anthropocene and its discontents, exploring how performing, media and visual artists working across different scales have created works that not only feature the “doings and actions” of a world beyond the human but also, in the process, undermine the possibility of thinking about the human as an autonomous and self-determined entity.

About the Speaker

Chris Salter is an artist, Professor for Design + Computation Arts at Concordia University in Montreal and Co-Director of the Hexagram Network for Arts, Culture and Technology, in Montreal. He studied philosophy, economics, theatre and computer music at Emory and Stanford Universities. After collaborating with Peter Sellars and William Forsythe/Ballett Frankfurt, he co-founded and directed the art and research organization Sponge (1997-2003). His work has been seen all over the world at such venues as the Venice Architecture Biennale, Barbican Centre, Berliner Festspiele, Wiener Festwochen, Musée d’art Contemporain, NAMOC – Beijing, LLUM BCN 2020, PACT Zollverein, Villette Numerique, EMPAC, EXIT Festival-Maison des Arts Creteil and Place des Arts, among many others. He is the author of Entangled: Technology and the Transformation of Performance (MIT Press, 2010) and Alien Agency: Experimental Encounters with Art in the Making (MIT Press 2015). His new book Sensing Machines: How Sensors Shape our Everyday Lives will be published by MIT Press in March 2022. In May 2022, he will take up the position of Professor of Immersive Arts and Director of the Immersive Arts Space at the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK).

About the Project

The Media Art 21: Practices, Reflections, and Pedagogies of Global Media Art Since 2000 is a three-year project initiated by the Institute of Sci-Tech Arts of the Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA).

Media art is an essential part of global contemporary art practice. It addresses the world of the present through the media of the past, present, and future. With the increasing artistic production of media art and its growing presence in international art exhibitions comes a growing need for critical and scholarly reflection, as well as for the inclusion of this field of practice in art education. For artists, scholars, curators, and students, access to original materials in conjunction with critical reflection is of prime importance for the study and development of an artistic field that has remarkably influenced, shaped, and stimulated contemporary art. MA21 – Media Art in the 21st century – seeks to address this need through an overview of media art since 2000 from a global perspective.

Project website: http://mediaart21.org