Cross-Cultural Roots for Media Practice

Inspire your media art practice with non-Western history, art, science, and philosophy with media theorists Siying Duan and Farshid Kazemi of the Substantial Motion Research Network, substantialmotion.org

8 hours total, over 2 sessions // Free: registration required. Limited space. Donations welcome!

Session 1: Sat Nov 16, 1:30pm – 5:30pm

Session 2: Sat Nov 23, 1:30pm – 5:30pm

Prerequisite: Suited for practicing media artists, curators, and writers who want to expand their approach to technology. Participants should bring a project idea they are developing or reworking and that they wish to workshop in a group discussion format.

How do your questions, process, and aesthetics change if you re-imagine technology itself as having roots in, for example, Islamic culture? Chinese culture? Indigeous culture?

This discussion-based workshop is intended to enrich your creative process and approach to media art by drawing inspiration from the particular histories, arts, sciences, philosophies, and everyday practices of so-called non-western cultures, using a method Laura Marks of the Substanial Motion Network developed for identifying Islamic roots of media art.

Bring your project ideas to the group, and discuss ways to explore your work-in-progress through specific cultural lenses. You’ll study examples, and revise your own project ideas based on the feedback you receive from the instructors and other participants. The instructors will present examples from Chinese and Iranian cultures. Between each session, you’ll continue researching, editing, and refining your project for further feedback with the group.