Dates
Fri 22 Nov – Sat 23 Nov 2024
Venue
Block F Level 2 #F201 (Fri) and #F202 (Sat)
LASALLE College of the Arts
1 McNally Street
Singapore 187940
Contact
Convened by
Professor Adam Knee
Faculty of Fine Arts, Media & Creative Industries,
LASALLE College of the Arts
Associate Professor Kristen Sharp
School of Art
RMIT University
Registration
The conference is open to all and free of charge.
Imaging Pasts and Futures: creative digital practices in the arts is a symposium for artists, designers, academics and creatives bringing together key thought-leaders and practitioners. Through a series of invited panel presentations and keynote presentations it examines how new technologies are being used by artists, designers and creative practitioners to interpret and transform knowledge systems and cultural narratives.
This event focuses on projects and research exploring cultural heritage (tangible/intangible) and new technologies through archiving, mapping, preserving and extending cultural memory and intergenerational learning, disappearing spaces and places, digital and/or hybrid museologies. It is also interested in how new tools, technologies and methods are being developed across creative sectors to image pasts and futures. It also seeks to highlight experimental practices in independent art spaces and arts organisations and how these are imaging pasts and futures.
Themes
- How new technologies are being used by artists, designers and creative practitioners to interpret and transform knowledge systems and cultural narratives.
- Cultural Heritage (tangible/intangible) and new technologies – archiving, mapping, preserving and extending cultural memory and intergenerational learning, disappearing spaces and places, digital and/or hybrid museologies.
- New tools, technologies and methods that are being developed across creative sectors to image pasts and futures.
- Experimental practices in independent art spaces and arts organisations and how these are imaging pasts and futures.
Supported by: An initiative under RMIT's Singapore Country Commitment; LASALLE College of the Arts, Faculty of Fine Arts, Media & Creative Industries; and RMIT University School of Art
Symposium information
Organised by: LASALLE College of the Arts, Faculty of Fine Arts, Media & Creative Industries
In collaboration with: RMIT University School of Art
Supported by: An initiative under RMIT's Singapore Country Commitment; LASALLE College of the Arts, Faculty of Fine Arts, Media & Creative Industries; and RMIT University School of Art
Organising committee:
Professor Adam Knee, LASALLE College of the Arts
Associate Professor Kristen Sharp, RMIT University
Dr Jonathan Gander, LASALLE College of the Arts
Urich Lau, LASALLE College of the Arts
Dr Wolfgang Muench, LASALLE College of the Arts
Dr Alison Bennett, RMIT University
Dr Tammy Wong Hulbert, RMIT University
Administrative assistants:
Clarissa Tan, Symposium Coordinator
Nurulain Haji Shaik Ali, Programme Administration
Suzanne Lee, Programme Administration
Poster design: Gracia Haby & Louise Jennison
Web design: Ailin Chin
Technical support: Aris Aziz and Muhammad Shayful Bin Kamal
Special thanks:
Professor Kit Wise, Dean, School of Art, RMIT University
Dr Venka Purushothaman, Deputy President and Provost, LASALLE College of the Arts
Yuen Yee Foong, Director, Division of Communications, LASALLE College of the Arts
In 2017, Dr Christian Thompson AO was the Inaugural recipient of the ACMI Mordant Family VR Commission. His work Bayi Gardiya (Singing Desert) is a bold ambitious virtual reality work. In it, he invites audiences to walk through the landscape of his childhood, where they witness a simple yet profound aesthetic gesture of the artist singing in his traditional Bidjara language, a language that has been recognised as extinct.
In his keynote lecture he will discuss the use of his language throughout his practice, the making of Bayi Gardiya (Singing Desert) and his exhibition at 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, Sydney which brought together his more recent work exploring his Southern Chinese Gold rush heritage.
About the speaker
Dr Christian Thompson AO is an Australian contemporary artist whose work explores notions of identity, cultural hybridity and history. Formally trained as a sculptor, Thompson’s multidisciplinary practice engages mediums such as photography, video, sculpture, performance and sound. His work focuses on the exploration of identity, sexuality, gender, race and memory. In his live performances and conceptual portraits he inhabits a range of personas achieved through handcrafted costumes and carefully orchestrated poses and backdrops.
In 2010, Thompson made history when he became the first Aboriginal Australian to be admitted into the University of Oxford in its 900-year history. He is currently a research affiliate at the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford and an Adjunct Industry Associate Professor in the School of Art and School of Fashion and Textiles at RMIT University, Melbourne. Thompson holds a Doctorate of Philosophy (Fine Art), Trinity College, University of Oxford, United Kingdom, Master of Theatre, Amsterdam School of Arts, Das Arts, The Netherlands, Masters of Fine Art (Sculpture) RMIT University and Honours (Sculpture) RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia and a Bachelor of Fine Art from the University of Southern Queensland, Australia.
In 2018, he was awarded an Officer of the Order of Australia for distinguished service to the visual arts as a sculptor, photographer, video and performance artist, and as a role model for young Indigenous artists.
Thompson's works are held in major public and private collections. He has exhibited widely both nationally and internationally, having been included in exhibitions such as The Marina Abramovic institute Takeover, Adelaide Festival, Australia at the Royal Academy for the Arts, London, We Bury Our Own, The Pitt Rivers Museum, SOLOS, Modern Art Oxford, Oxford, The Other and Me, The Sharjah Museum, United Arab Emirates, Shadow life Bangkok Art and Cultural centre, Bangkok, Thailand. The Beauty of Distance/ Songs of Survival in a Precarious Age, 17th Biennale of Sydney. A major survey exhibition of Thompson’s work, Christian Thompson: Ritual Intimacy toured nationally from 2017 to 2019 curated by Charlotte Day and Hetti Perkins.
When Hybrid Museologies and Sited Practice Cross Paths: Technological Interventions and the Return to the Real?
Museums have traditionally been defined as institutions dedicated to housing and displaying objects of historical, scientific, artistic, or cultural significance. However, the concept of the museum has evolved beyond fixed physical spaces, embracing a broader framework that reflects a complex relationship between humanity and reality through the intentional and systematic collection, conservation and curation of material artifacts. Scholars have further expanded the definition of museums as places of memory and as phenomena with distinct cultural and experiential significance. Contemporary “hybrid museologies” have augmented museum experience with VR, AR, XR, etc. technologies.
While these technological augmentations present to audiences novel experiences of mediated realities, this presentation asks whether there could be other ways to present realities immediately to audiences through technological interventions. The evolution of the concept of the museum is strikingly comparable to historical developments of sited practice, ranging from the notion of non-sites, site-specificity, new genre public art, etc., over the past few decades.
Reading hybrid museologies alongside artist’s site-specific projects, this presentation reflects on the possibilities and challenges of expanding both the practices of museums and public art as complementary ways of cultural production and avenues for experiencing cultural realities.
About the speaker
Kingsley Ng is Associate Professor and Programme Director of the BASc in Arts and Technology, at the School of Creative Arts, Hong Kong Baptist University. He received postgraduate training at Le Fresnoy – National Studio of Contemporary Arts in France and obtained an MSc in Advanced Sustainable Design from the University of Edinburgh. His intermedia works have been presented in notable international institutions and festivals including Center Pompidou, Museum of Contemporary Art of Rome, Contemporary Art Centre of South Australia, Pavilion Lille Europe in Shanghai Expo, Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale, Art Basel Hong Kong, etc., as well as in unusual venues such as a moving tram, a colossal underground stormwater tank, a night-time urban greenhouse among others.
The conference will take place on-site at LASALLE College of the Arts from 22 to 23 November 2024. Registration is required to attend.
You can download the full programme with speakers’ abstract and biography here.
For inquiries, please contact nurulain.ali@lasalle.edu.sg.