• Yuk Hui's Art and Cosmotechnics: An Invitation to a 21st-century Reassessment of Chinese Art

    Author(s):
    Glenn Smith (see profile)
    Contributor(s):
    Minglu Gao
    Date:
    2022
    Group(s):
    Art and Technology
    Subject(s):
    Art, Chinese, Aesthetics, Art and technology, Machinery in art, Computer art
    Item Type:
    Article
    Tag(s):
    Chinese art; shanshui; aesthetics; cosmotechnics; art and technology; algorithmic art; machine art; computer art; calculability; sentience
    Permanent URL:
    https://doi.org/10.17613/8xpj-z546
    Abstract:
    "I am neither an art historian nor art critic, and this work doesn't pretend to belong to those fields." Taking these words from Yuk Hui's preface to his 2021 Art and Cosmotechnics as an invitation, the author hopes to provide additional context for Professor Hui's forward-looking book by reassessing several strategic examples of Chinese art -- classic, modern, and contemporary -- in light of his refreshing and perhaps even revolutionary thesis: a) we must, at this mature stage in our evolution, "articulate the role of the human in the cosmos", and with particular attention to the ever-increasing technological aspects of our existence; b) art has a critical role to play in this process as manifesting the sensibility and imagination of an entire society; c) Chinese art, in particular, has been able to present a vision of an harmonious "heaven and earth" -- a cosmos -- which has historically included, as is the case today, the presence of a highly advanced technological civilization; and d) this art therefore creates the possibility of viewing our present circumstances from a far larger perspective -- and one in which the future remains open.
    Metadata:
    Status:
    Published
    Last Updated:
    4 months ago
    License:
    All-Rights-Granted
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