'Shan-Shui-Hua' - traditional Chinese landscape painting reinterpreted as moving digital visualisation

This paper is based on a practice-led research project and includes the demonstration of video art. It investigates how East Asian traditions of landscape art can be understood through reference to the condition of Western contemporary visual culture. Proceeding from Chinese thought and aesthetics the traditional concept of landscape painting 'Shan-Shui-Hua' is recreated in modern digital visualisation practice to explore form and question linear perspective that aims to represent realistic space

Cross cultural art: a contemporary approach to traditional chinese landscape painting

Is it possible today in the age of globalization to create new modes of cross-cultural art based on a comprehensive understanding of one culture without being accused of mimicking or exploiting another? This paper includes the presentation of an example of contemporary western video art that attempts to explore cross-cultural influences between the West and the East, and to discuss this question from the western perspective. Proceeding from Chinese thought and aesthetics, the traditional concept of landscape painting “Shan-Shui-Hua” (“mountain-water painting”) is recreated within the new western genre of the “video-painting” as a single (flat) screen video installation. Confronting the tools of modern computer visualisation with the East Asian concept creates an artistic artefact counter-pointing and reflecting both positions

Overlooked opportunities: Addressing global challenges through cross-cultural political and ecological digital art by reinterpretation of traditional Eastern art and philosophy

This paper is informed by a series of digital moving image art works that address current global challenges such as climate change or decline of democracy in an alternative way to word-wide audiences in the East and West by re-investigating and celebrating some values and traditions of Eastern art and culture as an overlooked, rich resource. The research process is practice-based and cross-cultural artefacts are created which are informed by aesthetic and philosophical tradition of Eastern art as well as critical approach of Western contemporary practice. Using digital media technologies idea and materiality of traditional Chinese scrolls of landscape and cityscape are adapted and remediated into animated video scrolls or video paintings. By inclusion of documentary video footage each makes a critical comment on a different subject such as the Tsunami 2011 in Japan or Tianamen Square Events 2009 in Beijing. Adopting Eastern scroll paintings to digital moving image has become quite common for Eastern artists. The body of work presented here was made by a Western artist and therefore engages additionally in translation and interpretation of cultural heritage into different contexts and cultural paradigms. These cross-cultural artefacts act as agents to foster discussion about the nature of global art practice as well as new forms of digital moving image. It results in intermedia practice that provides slow moving, contemplative narrative progression and invites the viewer to reflect on habituated pattern of media reception and to see its contents with ‘fresh eyes’

Lecture Transcript: Ambassador Bolewski-Oxford Speaking Notes

Ambassador Wilfried Bolewski, who teaches the Diplomacy and International Law classes at AGS was invited by Oxford University to give a Public Lecture on “Diplomacy and Crises: A practitioner’s insight and outlook” in the Global Governance and Diplomacy Public Speaker Series on February 9, 2015. “I am looking forward to this academic venue to explore new perspectives for the role of Diplomacy as facilitator for Global Governance,” says Professor Bolewski

Practice as research: Philosophy and aesthetics of Chinese landscape painting applied to contemporary Western film and digital visualisation

This practice-led research project investigates how East Asian Art traditions can be understood through reference to the condition of Western contemporary visual culture. Proceeding from Chinese thought and aesthetics the traditional concept of landscape painting ‘Shan-Shui-Hua’ is recreated within the new Western genre of the ‘video-painting’. The main features of the traditional Chinese landscape painting merges with Western moving image practice creating new modes of ‘transcultural art’ - a crossover of Western and Asian aesthetics - to explore form, and questions digital visualisation practice that aims to represent realistic space. Confronting the tools of modern computer visualisation with the East Asian concept creates an artistic artefact contrasting, confronting and counterpointing both positions

Man, nature and technology – eastern philosophy, global issues and western digital visualisation practice

This practice-based research project explores cross-cultural influences between the West and the East. It reinvestigates relationships of man and nature in Eastern traditional art and philosophy and transposes the content to contemporary global environmental issues. The outcomes are two ambient digital video art animations presented as video painting on high-resolution wall-mounted flat screen displays

(No) We, I, Myself and Them?

This is an outcome of a practice-based research project that revisits concepts and contents of Eastern traditional art via contemporary digital visualisation technology. The Eastern concept of multi-perspective and the endless hand scroll are explored through digital filmmaking, video compositing and virtual camera, depths and particle systems and mixed with life recorded video footage. The video art animation is presented on wall-mounted flat screen displays as video painting and is an intercultural remediation, genre mix and remake of the ancient Chinese hand scroll Along the River During the Qingming Festival by the Song dynasty artist Zhang Zeduan capturing the daily life of people and the landscape of on old Chinese capital. This old master piece is adopted into a contemporary manner by using contemporary and historical documentary video footage of Tianamen Square in Beijing and presents excerpts from the poem “Massacre” of the Chinese author Liao Yiwu commenting on Tiananmen Square incidents in 1989 as a reflection on the conflicting relationship between the individual and society struggling between tradition and cultural progress and global influences

Man, nature and technology – eastern philosophy, global issues and western digital visualisation practice

This artistic work submission consists of two video art animation which are presented on wall-mounted flat screen displays as video paintings. They are the outcomes of a practice-based research project that investigates the relationship of man and nature in Eastern traditional art and philosophy via contemporary digital visualistion technology and transposes the content to contemporary global environmental issues

Nonlinear narratives: crossing borders between contemporary film, art and digital media practice

This is a report on a practice-based research project called ‘Journeys in Travel’, which investigates contemporary modes of nonlinear narratives in film, art and digital media practice. It is a single case study, which suggests as its main contribution to set new ground in the development of nonlinear narratives that the structural form of cinematic essay is a suitable adoption for nonlinear database film, which is referred to as ‘database essay’. The video installation ‘Journeys in Travel’ is based on an algorithmic computer-controlled system and tells a story of travel. The Open Source Software ‘PD’ (Pure Data), a real-time music and multimedia environment mainly used to create live-algorithmic musical improvisation and (interactive) music composition, controls here an infinite audiovisual narrative. It is a temporary, open-ended arrangement, which sets in motion a seemingly endless chain of references to related topics: Foreign places, tourism, ethnography, globalisation, a hyperconnected world, movement, pace, rhythm and the relationship of film (structure), narrative and travel. ‘Journeys in Travel’ is designed as a creative investigation into multiple modes of contemporary digital narrative constructions. The database of video and sound elements can act as a source for varying experimental approaches where the 'data' or 'units' of the story are arranged and assembled according to different computer algorithms

Eastern cultural heritage, digital remediation and global perspectives

The paper describes findings from a practice-based research project exploring cross-cultural influences between the West and the East by recreating the concept of Shan-Shui-Hua – the traditional Eastern landscape painting within the new genre of “Video-Painting” as wall-mounted flat screen video installa-tion. It uses concepts of Art Appropriation, Remedia-tion and Remix to re-investigate relationships of man and nature in Eastern traditional landscape art and philosophy and transposes the content to contempo-rary global environmental issues and digital visualiza-tion technology. Using the “other” or the “unfamiliar” allows a fresh access and new interpretation of well-known territory. As such cultural heritage is seen as an opportunity to explore new artistic boundaries and styles of representation within set commodities of contemporary (digital) image creation. Translating and adapting subtle aesthetics, rich metaphor and philosophy of Eastern traditions creates a powerful, subversive tool to address pressing ecological issues differently and allows alternative ways of seeing and thinking thereby detecting Western preoccupations