2019 OCT-LOFT Creative Festival
Fun Palace 歡樂宮殿
December 07, 2019- February 29, 2020
Emma Charles, still image from White Mountain, 16mm transferred to HD video, 20 mins 56 seconds, 2013 ©Emma Charles
Opening Reception: December 07, 2019, 14:00
Duration: December 07, 2019 - February 29, 2020
Venue: C2 Space, OCT-LOFT, Shenzhen, China
Curator: Bruce Bo Ding
Artitst: Tega Brian, Marco Buetikofer+Lotte Meret Effinger, Emma Charles, Sheryl Cheung, Yingting Cui, Coca Dai, Aiwu, Sam Lavigne, Shuang Li, Michelle Proksell+Gabriele de Seta, Riar Rizaldi, Qing Shi, Zhenhao Shi, Alice Wang, Guoyong Wu, Qing Zhang
Host: OCT-LOFT
Support: Goethe-Institut China
Fun Palace- 2019 OCT-LOFT Creative Festival will be presented at Shenzhen OCT-LOFT from December 2019 to February 2020.
As one of the most pressing issues of our time, technology is not merely a tool; it is also hardly neutral but in a constant "action-and-reaction" relationship with individuals, history, and society. Fun Palace takes an unrealized architecture project designed by Cedric Price as a point of departure and goes on to exercise and reflect on the newly acquired freedom engendered by technological development. It underlines the role of human beings as questioner and seeks to re-initiate the discussion on the externality of technology in response to the various myths around technology now.
On the reality level, a trend that mixes techno-optimism and post-humanism may lead us to a new "crisis" in the understanding of and reaction to technology: to think that the public only has a passive position in the process of technological development, and that technology, like the wheel of history in a determinist sense, will move forward no matter what. In a time when "artificial intelligence" and "automation" have turned from imagination into reality, the future of technology seems to be increasingly inhuman. The sense of powerlessness when facing technology comes partly from the legitimization of the present by the aspired future, and partly from the rupture in the relation between technology itself and its tangible representation. We tend to focus only on what technology is willing to display, while conveniently neglecting the structure and logic underneath as well as its external impacts.
However, with so many 'solutions' that technology has provided, we don't seem to know how to understand the questions it has brought up and to question technology itself. Maybe, the unexamined technology is not worth having; maybe, the future of technology is not a product, but a place and a way to live with technology.
EXHIBITION
The exhibition is showing a total of 17 works from 16 artists/ artist groups including 5 new commissioned pieces and 4 pieces with new version. The exhibited works span an array of media including interactive installation, video, sound installation, photography, and together, they will demonstrate the thinking and practice of the artists from various perspectives and extended the invitation to the audience to join the discourse of technology.
PRECARIOUS PLAYGROUND
“Precarious Playground” is an open space that can be edited and shaped to facilitate different purposes and host different events. We encourage all technology-related research and/or discussion regarding the principles and applications of technology. Through an open call, we want to invite people from different fields to share their experience and engagement with technology and re-define how this space could be used.
PUBLICATION
The Festival will also publish a series of elaborate questions gathered from different practitioners in the field. Instead of answering these questions, practitioners are asked to share their thoughts and experience and to explain the context, reference, history, or evolution of these questions. To some extent, the publication tries to reveal the gap between the mechanism and expression of technology, and underline the importance of having more diverse and informed discourses around technology.
About the Curator
Bruce Bo Ding received his MSc from the University of Edinburgh and is now a curator and artist based in Guangzhou and Shanghai. Ding's artistic practice has been revolved around the concepts of embodied experience, technological mediation, and alternative modes of organization/production; at the same time, he has been involved in various social practice, and often switches roles to work in different contexts and territories in order to disrupt unnecessary barriers. In 2016, he curated "Mediated Body and Embodied Technologies" at Chronus Art Center. He also co-curated "PARKing: Nature as Data" at Jing’an Sculpture Park Art Center. His works have been shown in various institutions including the Power Station of Art, Shenzhen New Media Art Festival, M21, and Ming Contemporary Art Museum. He is also the founder of Topic Society.
About OCT-LOFT
OCT-LOFT is located in the former Eastern Industrial Zone of Shenzhen OCT. The whole area is divided into northern and southern districts, which totally covers an area of approximately 150,000 ㎡, with a gross floor area of 200,000 ㎡.
In 2004, we launched the renovation of an old industrial plant to transform it into a cultural and creative park. Two years later, OCT-LOFT was officially founded. Until the year 2011, the whole area was fully opened to the public. At present, there are up to 300 enterprises inside OCT-LOFT.
Guided by three major features as " creative and design, contemporary art, avant-garde music", we have organized various cultural and artistic events regularly, such as OCT-LOFT Public Art Exhibition, T-Street Creative Market, OCT-LOFT International Jazz Festival, OCT-LOFT Creative Festival, etc. As one of the most unique cultural & creative parks in Southern China, OCT-LOFT is committed to establishing an innovative industrial system and creating an international ecosystem in which culture, arts, technology and tourism play a significant role.
To see the exhibition via VR, please click here.
For more information, please refer to here.
GALLERY
