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Inspire your media art practice with non-Western history, art, science, and philosophy with media theorists Siying Duan and Farshid Kazemi of the Substantial Motion Research Network, substantialmotion.org
Sign up: https://crossculturalmedia.eventbrite.ca
8 hours total, over 2 sessions // Free: registration required. Limited space. Donations welcome!
Session 1: Sat Nov 16, 1:30pm - 5:30pm
Session 2: Sat Nov 23, 1:30pm - 5:30pm
Prerequisite: Suited for practicing media artists, curators, and writers who want to expand their approach to technology. Participants should bring a project idea they are developing or reworking and that they wish to workshop in a group discussion format.
How do your questions, process, and aesthetics change if you re-imaginetechnology itself as having roots in, for example, Islamic culture? Chinese culture? Indigeous 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 Substanial 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 instructors will present examples from Chinese and Iranian cultures. Between each session, you'll continue researching, editing, and refining your project for further feedback with the group.
VIVO is located in the homelands of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səl̓ílwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) peoples in a warehouse space at 2625 Kaslo Street south of East Broadway at the end of E 10th. Transit line 9 stops at Kaslo Street on Broadway. From the bus stop, the path is paved, curbless, and on a slight decline. The closest skytrain station is Renfrew Station, which is three blocks south-east of VIVO and has an elevator. From there, the path is paved, curbless, and on a slight incline. There is parking available at VIVO, including wheelchair access parking. There is a bike rack at the entrance. The front entrance leads indoors to a set of 7 stairs to the lobby.
A wheelchair ramp is located at the west side of the main entrance. The ramp has two runs: the first run is 20 feet long, and the second run is 26 feet. The ramp is 60 inches wide. The slope is 1:12. The ramp itself is concrete and has handrails on both sides. There is an outward swinging door (34 inch width) at the top of the ramp leading to a vestibule. A second outward swinging door (33 inch width) opens into the exhibition space. Buzzers and intercoms are located at both doors to notify staff during regular office hours or events to unlock the doors. Once unlocked, visitors can use automatic operators to open the doors.
There are two all-gender washrooms. One has a stall and is not wheelchair accessible. The other is a single room with a urinal and is wheelchair accessible: the door is 33 inches wide and inward swinging, without automation. The toilet has 11 inch clearance on the left side and a handrail.
To reach the bathrooms from the studio, exit through the double doors and proceed straight through the lobby and down the hall . Turn left, and the two bathrooms will be on your right side. The closest one has a stall and is not wheelchair accessible. The far bathroom is accessible.
Farshid Kazemi is a postdoc fellow at the School for Contemporary Arts, Simon Fraser University. His research interests combine an interdisciplinary and theoretical approach to Film and Media Studies/Film Theory, Iranian Studies, and Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Edinburgh, with a thesis on Iranian Cinema and Psychoanalysis. He has published several articles and book chapters on Iranian cinema, psychoanalytic film theory/feminist film theory, and Iranian and Islamic studies more broadly.
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.
