Thoughts on Time, Ecology and Art Presentation for American Society of Cybernetics (ASC) 2020 Global Conversation, September 12-13 2020
Part 1: https://youtu.be/4Wcq5WbhmyA Part 2: https://youtu.be/c5JibGTXNks
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Constructing the Hybrid City: Shanghai If the conceptualizations of place – as giving sense to events – are not only romantic ideas that belong to the old times, or maybe to old Europe, but ideas that are universal, then there might be a reason for the emptiness on Shanghai Pudong’s streets and sidewalks. The ubiquity of the image of Pudong’s skyline might give a truly honest account of what the contemporary networked city in China is like – mobile and placeless. Is there an option for shifting the situation? Is there a need for it, or a desire? Presentation for the CONNECTIONS: EXPLORING HERITAGE, ARCHITECTURE, CITIES, ART, MEDIA conference held in June 2020 in Canterbury. https://youtu.be/mDRzB33TJdM
Seats for Seeing were installed in Beikeng village, Yanping district in Fujian province, China, at the end of November 2019.
The work was made in collaboration with colleagues at Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University Adam Bentley Brillhart, Yiping Dong, and Thomas Wortmann, and with assistance from our alumna Chen Fanyun (mostly on-site) and Ominda Nanayakkara in Civil Engineering (structures consultation).
The work is part of the Yanping Art Harvest, running from 30 November 2019 to 29 February 2020. It has its own website at www.seatsforseeing.net.
[..] flowing with the waters, halting with the mountains. In the images of light and wind the ephemeral is inscribed. Time is part of space. The scene performs.
The essay "Chinese Landscape Aesthetics: the exchange and nurturing of emotions" published in the book New Horizons: Eight Perspectives on Chinese Landscape Architecture Today presents traditional Chinese concepts that are typically translated into English as 'landscape.' Following the etymology of the Chinese terms and recognizing that their conceptual focus is on the exchange and nurturing of emotions, which is not captured by the English term, we can gain a new understanding also of contemporary works of Chinese landscape architecture.
The American Society of Landscape Architects lists New Horizons: Eight Perspectives on Chinese Landscape Architecture Today as one of the best books of 2020.
The text "Chinese Landscape Aesthetics: the exchange and nurturing of emotions" by Claudia Westermann of LITRA is available online via google books.
The PDF of Claudia Westermann's 'The art of conversation: design cybernetics and its ethics' published in Kybernetes is available via researchgate.
XJTLU, ARC304, FYP Studio 2019-20 | Tutored by Claudia Westermann
Works by Zuo Annan, Shi Xiongzhe, and Yao Yiming
In the 1968 movie 2001: A Space Odyssey, in one of the most memorable scenes at the beginning of the film, director Stanley Kubrick tells us that the dawn of man occurred with the discovery of tools (Kubrick and Clarke, 1968). Thinking objects as tools, specifically to defend and to attack, marks the beginning of technological invention and the transition from ape to human. The Dawn of Man scene reflects Darwinian theories of evolution. The focus on struggle, competition, and death as part of evolution is in line with the emphasis made by Darwinists. According to Darwinian theories, human beings are necessarily always in a struggle with their environment. We have not lived with nature but against nature. Consequently, the activities of human beings have gradually grown into a significant geological, morphological force. A new era has emerged. It has been named the Anthropocene.
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