Visual Culture Wars at the Borders of Contemporary China: Art, Design, Film, New Media and the Prospects of “Post-West” Contemporaneity

Description

This edited collection brings together essays that share in a critical attention to visual culture as a means of representing, contributing to and/or intervening with discursive struggles and territorial conflicts currently taking place at and across the outward-facing and internal borders of the People’s Republic of China. Elucidated by the essays collected here for the first time is a constellation of what might be described as visual culture wars comprising resistances on numerous fronts not only to the growing power and expansiveness of the Chinese state but also the residues of a once pervasively suppressive Western colonialism/imperialism. The present volume addresses visual culture related to struggles and conflicts at the borders of Hong Kong, the South China Sea and Taiwan as well within the PRC with regard the so-called “Great Firewall of China” and differences in discursive outlook between China and the West on the significances of art, technology, gender and sexuality. In doing so, it provides a vital index of twenty-first century China’s diversely conflicted status as a contemporary nation-state and arguably nascent empire. Preface Acknowledgements Contents Notes on Contributors List of Figures Introduction References Hong Kong and the South China Sea Some Tangible, Some Forgotten: Art About Borders in the Hong Kong SAR Introduction Talkover/Handover 2.0 Tangible Border: Law Yuk Mui, Walking in Circles Tangible Border: Yim Suifong, Falling Like a Feather Forgotten Borders: The Rooftop Institute and Asia Seed Programme Conclusion References Reclaiming the Autonomy of Living in Truth: Protest-Making and Design in Hong Kong’s Occupy Central/Umbrella Movement Introduction From Art to Artefacts—Back to the Making Process Protest Infrastructures and Protest-Making Actor Network Theory as a Framework for the Analysis of Protest-Making Creating Spaces of Care, Order and Productivity Through Autonomous Protest-Making Reclaiming Autonomy, Defending the Ideological Border and DIY-ing Citizenship Conclusion References Imagined Mappings of Geopolitical Power: Liquid Borders, Military Infrastructures and Ecological Destruction in the South China Sea Introduction Historical Background What Is at Stake? Drawing Borders—Cartography and Exploitation MAP Office, Liquid Land|Solid Sea—Cartography Without Borders Conclusion—Retrieving the “Common” References Art and Technology Rendering Frontiers: From China’s Historical Dynastic-Imperial to Modern Republican Borders and the Changing Significances of Chinese Art Introduction China’s Historical Dynastic-Imperial Borders China’s Modern Republican Borders Confucian-Literati Art in Dynastic-Imperial China Modern and Contemporary Art in Republican China Conclusion References Confucianism and Technology: Critical Reflections on the Borders Between Chinese and Euro-American Modernity Introduction Confucianism Today Confucianism and Technology Qi, Gan and Prehension Engaging with Speculative Reason Capitalism and Human-Heaven Alignment Materialism Beyond Culturalism Conclusion References Remediating China’s Virtual Borders: The Ambient Myth of Moha (Toad Worship) Introduction Online Memes as Net Art of Demystification The Networked Aesthetics of Moha Becoming an Ambient Myth Demystifying the Ambient Myth Remediating the Chinese Virtual Border Conclusion References Gender and Sexuality Taming China’s Southern Frontiers Through Song and Dance: Chauvinisms (Han and Male) in The Red Detachment of Women Introduction A Modern Classic Hainan’s Historical Context The Gendered Frontier “The Party Controls the Gun” Visualising the Southern Frontier Today Conclusion References Biopolitical Borders, Female Bodies and Knowledge About “Women” in the Work of the Beijing-Based Artists Ma Qiusha and Hu Xiaoyuan Introduction Biopower in Post-/Socialist China The Docile Body Truth-Speak Discipline I Discipline II Discipline III Conclusion References Technological Art and the Borders of Sexuality and Gender in Taiwan: A Case Study of Pey-Chwen Lin Introduction Research Background Pey-Chwen Lin’s Eve Clone Series Body Manifestation Conclusion References Index