Art that Moves Conference, Sallis Benney Theatre, University of Brighton .00

About

Session 3

10.30-11.30Art that Moves, contextual introduction, by Artist-curator, Dr. Lucia King. Followed by screening, of excerpts from the film, This is China of a particular sort I dont know discussed by the artist, Clare Chun-yu Liu and a post screening discussion moderated byKaty Beinart.

The British cultural heritage of chinoiserie was a curious cross-cultural phenomenon. In the 18th century, the East India Company traded with the Chinese Empire in Canton under strict Chinese rules. Filmed at the Royal Pavilion Brighton, the film explores the chinoiserie decorative scheme in the British pleasure palace built by George IV. Inspired by the royal gifts from the Chinese Emperor Chien-lung from Macartneys Embassy, the British King used chinoiserie as an escape from reality, created and possessed an illusory China. In the film, several historical individuals from Taiwan, China and Britain articulate their views on the chinoiserie collections on site based on their varied lived experiences.Clare Chun-yu Liu is an artist and curator. Informed by her familys Taiwanese, Chinese and Indonesian background, Clares practice centres on diaspora and identity through exploring lived experience and oral history.

11.45-13.00
Talk: Migrating Images: Rethinking Artistic Production through AI and Distributed Creativity by artist/curator,Isaac Leung. AI has recently had profound implications for artistic practice. Considering AI as a crucial agent in the creative process, Leung examines how artistic production emerges within complex networks of relations. Within AI systems, datasets become vast actor-networks: millions of images, models, and computational infrastructures. Images migrate across networks of data, algorithms, and human interpretation, producing a continuous movement of cultural material. Within AI art, agency is multifaceted. Artists influence prompts, algorithms shape outputs, datasets affect aesthetic possibilities, and platforms mediate the circulation of images. Agency is therefore constantly shifting rather than residing in a single author. This allows migration to be understood beyond the physical movement of people across borders, instead being seen as the process of negotiating new networks of relations. Drawing on the work of Bruno Latour and Actor-Network Theory, Leung proposes that AI art should not be understood simply as a technological medium, but as a dynamic assemblage in which images, datasets, algorithms, and artists continually migrate across evolving networks of relations. Followed by Q&A.

13.00-14.00 Break for Lunch

14.00-14.50
University of Brighton MA Fine Art, PhD students and alumni who have been working with the curation team of Art that Moves. They have prepared projects responding to Art that Moves context and themes. This practice-based exchange and research have produced works exploring migration and mobilities across multiple media, forms of expression and approach that they will showcase here. A presentation followed by discussion and a sharing of ideas.

15.00-15.40
Artist Whiskey Chow. Presentation, followed by film screeningyou must everywhere wander, (2021, 827). Chow will discuss their involvement in feminist and LGBTQ+ activism in China in their early 20s (For Vaginas Sake (2013) - original Chinese version of The Vagina Monologues. Chow curated the first Chinese LGBTQ music festival Lover Comrades Concert (2013) in Guangzhou which shaped their approach: informed by queer migrant identity and art-activism, their engagement is intersectional, and diasporic. Chows work also addresses queer(ing) masculinity, problematising the nation-state across geographic boundaries, interrogating stereotypical projections of Chinese/Asian identity, to enabling empowerment by queer-reading ancient Chinese myth. Chow launched, curated and performed in Queering Now (2020). They have exhibited works across the UK & internationally including V&A, Tate Modern, Tate Britain, & National Museum of Modern & Contemporary Art (Seoul).

You must everywhere wander, (2021, 8 27) Film synopsis: Exploring an imaginative queer masculine body-scape, where the spices in Chinese cooking grow as spectacular natural landscapes, this filmed performance includes CGI animation and sound art drawing on Chinese myth from a queer Asian diasporic perspective, a meeting point of transgressive desire, dream homeland and reality. The film centralizes Chows gaze with the aesthetic of Sino-futurism, and intersectional layering of queer masculinity and ancient Chinese myth. Inspired by childhood memory and critical reflection on the construction of Asian identity. They believe home is somewhere filled with the smell of good food; somewhere your loved one makes an effort to treat you with delicious and time-consuming food as a token of love and care.

15.40-16.20
Presentation by film scholar & curator, Lu Etienne: How is a film festival like a trans bar? Practices for reprogramming.Film festivals, like trans bars, are diasporic. They are networks of bodies that cross borders, where time and identity are creatively disjointed, new awareness flickers and shines, and recognition is a prize. Cinemas, festivals, and trans spaces are ephemeral lifelines. But too often, their promises of belonging are betrayed by policing, silencing and disavowal. How can we see and relate differently in these spaces?Lu Etienne brings together innovative film practices, decolonial and trans scholarship, and their own experience as a migratory trans cultural worker to explore ways of selecting and screening films that illuminate more liveable horizons. Lu Etienne is curious about links between filmic techniques, and political action. Their work explores dynamics of spectatorship and representations of counter-memory, hybridity, racialisation and trans labour. They hold an M.A.Distinction in Film Studies (University of Sussex) and are curator with the Queer East Festival. Concluding the days session with a Q&A open to the public.

Image - Whiskey Chow, Be-coming, video still, editor, Haocheng Wu