[via Stephen Kovats, [log in to unmask]]
Tangent_Leap
An evening on emergent media culture in the People’s Republic of China
19.00 - 22.00 (CET), Thursday March 30
V2_Institute for the Unstable Media
Eendrachtstraat 10/12, Rotterdam
in collaboration with IIAS (International Institute for Asian
Studies, Leiden)
This event will be streamed live (REAL MEDIA) with a moderated IRC
channel open at via www.v2.nl/live.
featuring
Isaac Mao, activist blogger and software architect, Shanghai
Zhang Ga, media artist and curator, Beijing/New York
Karsten Giese, political scientist and sinologist, Hamburg
Guobin Jang, social scientist, New York online
Over the last few years, The Great Leap, has become a popular
metaphor to describe the fast-paced modernization process in China.
However, in spite of the turbulent economic growth some domains of
Chinese society have changed very little during the past two decades.
Many Chinese have seen their private freedoms increase significantly.
But, critics would argue that the official policies of ‘opening up’
have neither changed the political system nor the state control of
public media. Others claim that new social spaces have emerged for
citizens to voice their opinion and take action. The use of bottom-up
media such as the web, e-mail and sms have enabled people to self-
organize creating a new form of middle landscape, somewhere between
the official media landscape, and the private sphere. Minor reform
rather than total revolution marks the cautious pace of such
development.
Nowhere has this middle landscape become more clear than in the new
forms of media culture that have also exploded in China over the last
few years. Weblogs, bulletinboards, peer-to-peer distribution and
chatrooms have made the traditional sharp division between public and
private lives problematic. While most of the over 100 million Chinese
citizens currently online are using electronic networked media for
mere entertainment, many employ a number of tactics to find or
distribute information outside the official media system. In this
middle landscape, or third places, news ways of constructing
identities are emerging. And while the line between political public
sphere and commercial arena for entertainment is also becoming
blurry, new landscapes for discussion are opened up. Is this the
beginning of a true civil society in China, emerging from these new
middle grounds?
Isaac Mao (co-founder Social Brain Foundation, Shanghai) is one of
China’s earliest and most prolific media activists using blogs as a
grassroots voice-enabling technology and emergent democracy tool. He
divides his time between research, leading the Creative Commons China
team and running China based software technology businesses. His
website <www.isaacmao.com> is now blocked in China.
Zhang Ga (New York Institute of Technology and Research Fellow,
Tsinghua University, Beijing) is an internationally recognised media
artist and curator active in Europe, North America and China who has
written on new media art and criticism while being active in
organizing exhibitions, conferences and digital salons in China. As
one of the leading proponents of linking art and technology as a
cultural practice in China, Zhang Ga works to identify the emergent
Chinese artistic and cultural media landscape.
Karsten Giese (Institute for Asian Studies, Hamburg) heads the
‘Chinese Urban Identities in the Internet Age’ research program. His
works identifies the internet as a third place, which ‘exists on
neutral ground’ creating conditions of social equality where
conversation is the primary activity and the major vehicle for the
display and appreciation of human personality and individuality. Such
emergent interstitial spaces could play an important role in new
emerging processes of identity formation of (especially) young urban
Chinese.
Guobin Yang (Columbia University, New York) has written extensively
about the Chinese internet as being a middle landscape which is
neither a purely political arena, nor simply a commercial space of
entertainment. In his article Mingling Politics with play Yang
illustrates the role of the state and of business in the development
of a civic public sphere, a zone where both have an ambiguous role.
moderator: Stephen Kovats, media researcher, V2_Institute
respondent: Martijn de Waal, journalist and media theorist, Amsterdam
www.v2.nl
www.iias.nl
entry: 2,50 EUR
ONLINE PARTICIPANTS:
To follow the stream and participate in this event online, you may
use the embedded stream and IRC chat on:
http://www.v2.nl/live
If you prefer to use your own external clients:
REAL MEDIA stream: rtsp://helix.v2.nl/encoder/leap.rm
IRC server: irc.v2.nl
Channel: #V2_LEAP
For technical issues, please use IRC channel: #tech
*************************************************
V2_Institute for the Unstable Media
Stephen Kovats_Program Development
Eendrachtsstraat 10
3012 XL Rotterdam
The Netherlands
t_ **31 10 750 1519
f_ **31 10 206 7271
e_ [log in to unmask]
www.v2.nl
events streamed live at www.v2.nl/live
and moderated on <irc.v2.nl>
#V2_tangent
SWITCH!
exhibition of interactive multi-media by Willem de Kooning graduates
opening event Thursday March 16, 20.00
exhibition daily 12.00 - 17.00 until March 25
http://switch.wdka.hro.nl
TANGENT_LEAP
on emergent media landscapes in China
Thursday March 30 @ 19.00 - 22.00 CET
Featuring Isaac Mao, Zhang Ga, Karsten Giese and Guobin Yang
in collaboration with International Institute for Asian Studies,
Leiden (IIAS)
TANGENT_ORBIT
on electronic geostationary sound and space
Friday April 07 @ 19.00 - 22.00 CET
Featuring Marko Peljhan and Zacharias live from Igloolik, Nunavut
with acoustic space performances by Marc Bain and Adam Hyde
ELECTROMAGNETIC BODIES
exhibition opening May 04, 2006
conference: The Electromagnetic Bride - Saturday May 06, 2006
TANGENT_FEAR
on media and phobic objects
webstream archived at http://www.archive.org/details/tangents_fear
featuring Karen Lancel and Hermen Maat with
Marc de Kesel, Jill Magid and Dennis del Favero
aRt & D: Research and Development in Art
V2_Publication launched June 04
Beijing Millenium Dialogue
In the Line of Flight
www.newmediabeijing.org
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