Art, Technology and Philosophy lecture series and symposium

Join the Media Lab of Guangdong Times Museum and the Research Network for Philosophy and Technology for the Media Lab’s inaugural Art, Technology and Philosophy lecture series and symposium “Departing from the Microcosmos” addressing traditional Chinese medicine and modernization.

December 7–13, 2021 online lectures 
Volker Scheid: How Chinese Medicine Became German: Holism, Systems, and Free Flow (December 7)
Judith Farquhar: Medical Action, Human Things: Practice/Roots/Ethics (December 9)
Lili Lai: Climate Phenology, Syndromes: the Circle of Life (December 11)
Keekok Lee: One Interpretation of Classical Chinese Medicine from the Standpoint of the Philosophy of Medicine (December 13)
*All lectures will screen on the media lab website with both English and Chinese subtitles.

December 18, 2021
10:30–11:30am (Beijing time)
Clear Calm Free Human online performance lecture and conversation with Sheryl Cheung, moderated by Wu Jianru.

3–5pm (Beijing time) at East Hall of Guangdong Times Museum
3C Xing Yi Quan Workshop hosted by Xia Lin

December 19, 2021
9–11pm (Beijing time) 

Departing from the Microcosmos Symposium
Discussant and moderator: Yuk Hui
Guests: Keekok Lee, Judith Farquhar, Volker Scheid, Lili Lai, Xia Lin, Sheryl Cheung

Modernization brought forward two temporal dimensions: on the one hand, simultaneity, characterized by the synchronization and homogenization of knowledge through technological means; on the other hand, sequentiality, the development of knowledge according to an internal necessity, namely progress. The victory of the modern simultaneously implies an epistemological war across the globe in the past hundred years. Knowledge that remains incompatible with this temporalization process is excluded as pre-modern or non-modern. This opposition between the modern and the traditional has been historically approached from a duality, namely taking one as the soul, the other as body; one as thought, the other as instrument. This dualist scheme has proved to be a failure because it is, in itself, a product of early modernity.

In China, the debate between Western medicine and Chinese medicine has been ongoing for many decades; however, the return to traditional knowledge shouldn’t be monopolized by nationalism, but rather it should be taken as an opportunity to rethink knowledge and its relationship to modernity, which might give us a glimpse of a possibility for configuring a new modern in several ways. Firstly, it reveals a cosmo-epistemic understanding of ten thousand beings, which deviates from the modern episteme, and whose significance remains yet to be fully explored. Secondly, its incompatibility with modern scientific knowledge could also be the source of inspiration and creativity. A regrounding of art, technology, and philosophy might shed light on the individuation of thinking that the epoch calls for. Media Lab’s inaugural “Art, Technology and Philosophy Lecture Series” consists of five lectures, a workshop and a symposium dedicated to the re-articulation of knowledge in the digital age, with the participation of anthropologists, philosophers, historians of science and artists, including Judith Farquhar (University of Chicago), Volker Scheid (Max Planck Institute for the History of Science/University of Westminster),  Keekok Lee (University of Manchester), Lili Lai (Peking University), Xia Lin & Sheryl Cheung (lololol Collective).

Media Lab 
Initiated in 2019 and officially established in December 2021, the Media Lab of Times Art Museum is dedicated to contemplating and exploring the languages and traditions of art from the perspective of media and technology in an era of accelerated technological development. It aims to deliver a new vision of art and technology by experimenting with the ways in which digital media build new social relationships and foster cultural imagination through rehearsals and speculations.

Research Network for Philosophy and Technology 
The Research Network for Philosophy and Technology, established in 2014, gathers international experts to rethink the relation between philosophy and technology and the future of this relation from global and historical perspectives.