21 October 2021
7:30-9pm HKT
JC Cube, Tai Kwun, Hong Kong (in-person only)
Registration to join ›
Tai Kwun Conversation invites the philosopher Yuk Hui, whose theoretical enquiries revolve around the question of technology, together with the renowned curator and artistic director of Serpentine Galleries, Hans Ulrich Obrist, to an engaging dialogue on the occasion of the launch of Yuk Hui’s latest book Art and Cosmotechnics (University of Minnesota Press, 2021).
Hui and Obrist have, over a number of years, engaged in a series of dialogues that took place in Berlin, New York, London, and Hong Kong, which focused on Hui’s work as well as their common interest in Jean-François Lyotard’s 1985 exhibition Les Immatériaux. In his latest book Art and Cosmotechnics, Hui charts a course through Greek tragedy, the logic of cybernetics, and the aesthetics of Chinese landscape painting, and addresses the challenge to art and philosophy occasioned by contemporary technological transformations. He poses the question: How might a renewed understanding of the varieties of experience of art be realised in face of the prevailing discourses around artificial intelligence and robotics? Departing from Hegel’s thesis on the end of art and Heidegger’s assertion of the end of philosophy, Hui outlines an unfamiliar trajectory of thought to arrive at a new relation between art and technology. In this dialogue, Obrist and Hui will touch upon various subjects in the book and beyond.
This talk is a crossover event of Tai Kwun Conversations and Summer Institute #4. Tai Kwun Conversations is a monthly event that brings together brilliant minds from the fields of contemporary art, architecture, heritage, among many others. Join us to discover new artistic exchange and outstanding practices in heritage conservation. Summer Institute is a two-week programme of tertiary student seminars and distinguished public lectures focusing on students from Hong Kong and Asia. Apply now for a unique chance to work closely with some of the most important art theorists and thinkers, curators, artists, and philosophers in the world.
Summer Institute #4 The Future after the Pandemic invites seven scholars to explore opportunities and challenges to art in relation to the post-pandemic future, climate change, new relations between art and technology, quarantine urbanism, new kinship, and the adoption of alternative approaches in teaching and knowledge-making.
This public lecture will be conducted in English, with English to Cantonese simultaneous interpretation.