We are undergoing a planetary transition. The complexity of the changes introduced by digital technologies, the “Internet of Thing”, 3D printing, Artificial Intelligence, the automatization of labor, genetic engineering… can only be compared to those produced after the XVI century by the invention of the printing press and the steam machine. Moreover, if previous industrial revolutions transformed modes of production, the current algorithm and biotech revolution is drastically modifying technologies of social reproduction, communication, and connectivity. It is the very definitions of what is a human being (in relation to the animal, but also to the machine) and of what can be a sustainable living society (ecologically and politically) that are being renegotiated. A new social contract has to be collectively written. This is a time of immense potential, but also of enormous risk. The subaltern subjects (in terms of class, gender, sex, sexuality, age, embodiment…) demand access to the technologies of government and knowledge production. Within this paradigm shift, we need new grammars and critical practices able to translate technological changes into social innovation and democracy. The challenge is to be able to imagine a radical transformation: politics must join the arts.
Challenging traditional gender, sexual and political hierarchies, Shu Lea Cheang, Paul B. Preciado and Audrey Tang’s respective works contribute to transform collective imagination and elaborate new languages and practices for planetary transitioning.
Join us for this special conversation between Shu Lea Cheang, selected artist to represent Taiwan at 2019 Venice Biennial, Paul B. Preciado, philosopher and curator of the Taiwan Pavilion and internationally acclaimed social innovator Audrey Tang.
* English with Chinese simultaneous translation. Slido for Q&A Session.
Exhibition Talk: Taiwan’s Representation at 58th Venice Biennale
Democracy in Transition
Freedom, art, and cooperative action in the fourth industrial revolution
Shu Lea Cheang, Paul B. Preciado and Audrey Tang in conversation
November 27, 2018 at 2pm-4:30 pm
TFAM B2, Auditorium
Link: https://goo.gl/forms/BH2P3jicCaZsyLm83
Shu Lea Cheang
Shu Lea Cheang is an artist and filmmaker working with various art mediums and film formats, including installation, performance, net art, public art, video installation, feature length film and mobile web serial. Her artistic pursuits demonstrates an imagination and desire to cross the boundaries of society, geography, politics, and economic structure, thus redefining genders, roles, mechanisms, etc. As a net art pioneer, her BRANDON (1998-1999) was the first web art commissioned and collected by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York. Her network installations, including Bowling Alley (1995, Walker Art Center, USA), Baby Love (2015, Palais de Tokyo, Paris), often employ electronic interactive devices to construct open networks that permit public participation. Her multi-player participatory networked performance, including Moving Forest (2008, transmediale, Berlin), UKI (2009-2016) with transgressive plots are realized in collective impromptu mode. She drafts sci-fi narratives in her film scenario and artwork imagination, crafting her own “science” fiction genre of new queer cinema, terming them eco-cybernoia (FRESH KILL, 1994), scifi cyberpunk (I.K.U., 2000), scifi cypherpunk (Fluidø, 2017). From homesteading cyberspace in the 90s to her current retreat to post-netcrash BioNet zone, Cheang takes on viral love, bio hack in her current cycle of works. Born in Taiwan, lived in New York City for two decades, Cheang is currently residing in Paris. (http://mauvaiscontact.info)
Paul B. Preciado
Paul B. Preciado is a writer, philosopher, curator, and one of the leading thinkers in the study of gender and sexual politics. An Honors Graduate and Fulbright Fellow, he earned a M.A. in Philosophy and Gender Theory at the New School for Social Research in New York where he studied with Agnes Heller and Jacques Derrida. He holds a Ph.D. in Philosophy and Theory of Architecture from Princeton University. His first book, Counter-Sexual Manifesto (Columbia University Press) was acclaimed by French critics as “the red book of queer theory” and became a key reference for European queer and trans activism. He is the author of Testo Junkie. Sex, Drugs and Biopolitics (The Feminist Press) and Pornotopia (Zone Books) for which he was awarded the Sade Price in France. He has been Head of Research of the Museum of Contemporary Art of Barcelona (MACBA) and Director of the Independent Studies Program (PEI) from 2011 to 2014. He has taught Philosophy of the Body and Transfeminist Theory at Université Paris VIII-Saint Denis and at New York University. From 2014 to 2017 he was Curator of Public Programs of documenta 14 (Kassel/Athens). He is a writer in residency at the LUMA Foundation, Arlès, France. He lives between Athens, Paris, and Barcelona.
Audrey Tang
Audrey Tang is one of the main developers of the Haskell community and the Perl 6 programming language. She has long been involved in open cultural community collaboration, participating in the global movement for free software, promoting human rights on the global information network, and assisting in the development of collaboration platforms such as Wikipedia. Audrey Tang is also a contributor to the online community g0v.tw, which challenges the established framework by hackathons and works together to create projects such as moe dictionary to foster social change.
Audrey Tang is a self-proclaimed "conservative anarchist". Through the practice of anarchist thoughts online, she creates a connecting channel in which everyone can initiate equal dialogue and exchange knowledge. Audrey Tang is currently the Digital Minister of the Executive Yuan and is responsible for promoting "social innovation", "youth participation" and "open government".