The Time Phenomenon of Chinese Zen and Video Art in China

30 Pages·2016·4.67 MB·English

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CULTURA
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL
OF PHILOSOPHY OF CULTURE
CULTURA AND AXIOLOGY
Founded in 2004, Cultura. International Journal of Philosophy of
2016
2016 Vol XIII No 2
Culture and Axiology is a semiannual peer-reviewed journal devo- 2
ted to philosophy of culture and the study of value. It aims to pro-
mote the exploration of different values and cultural phenomena in
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regional and international contexts. The editorial board encourages Y O
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the submission of manuscripts based on original research that are PO
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judged to make a novel and important contribution to understan- LOSD A
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ISBN 978-3-631-71562-8
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A
R
U
T
L
U
C
CULTURA
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL
OF PHILOSOPHY OF CULTURE
CULTURA AND AXIOLOGY
Founded in 2004, Cultura. International Journal of Philosophy of
2016
2016 Vol XIII No 2
Culture and Axiology is a semiannual peer-reviewed journal devo- 2
ted to philosophy of culture and the study of value. It aims to pro-
mote the exploration of different values and cultural phenomena in
FY
OG
regional and international contexts. The editorial board encourages Y O
HL
the submission of manuscripts based on original research that are PO
OXI
judged to make a novel and important contribution to understan- LOSD A
ding the values and cultural phenomena in the contempo rary world. HIN
A
OF PRE
U
L T
AL
NU
RC
U
O
J
L
A
N
O
TI
A
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www.peterlang.com
CULTURA 2016_271562_VOL_13_No2_GR_A5Br.indd 1 14.11.16 KW 46 10:45
CULTURA
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF
PHILOSOPHY OF CULTURE AND AXIOLOGY
Cultura. International Journal of Philosophy of Culture and Axiology
E-ISSN (Online): 2065-5002
ISSN (Print): 1584-1057
Advisory Board
Prof. Dr. David Altman, Instituto de Ciencia Política, Universidad Catolica de Chile, Chile
Prof. Emeritus Dr. Horst Baier, University of Konstanz, Germany
Prof. Dr. David Cornberg, University Ming Chuan, Taiwan
Prof. Dr. Paul Cruysberghs, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium
Prof. Dr. Nic Gianan, University of the Philippines Los Baños, Philippines
Prof. Dr. Marco Ivaldo, Department of Philosophy “A. Aliotta”, University of Naples “Federico II”, Italy
Prof. Dr. Michael Jennings, Princeton University, USA
Prof. Dr. Maximiliano E. Korstanje, University of Palermo, Argentina
Prof. Dr. Richard L. Lanigan, Southern Illinois University, USA
Prof. Dr. Christian Lazzeri, Université Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense, France
Prof. Dr. Massimo Leone, University of Torino, Italy
Prof. Dr. Asunción López-Varela Azcárate, Complutense University, Madrid, Spain
Prof. Dr. Christian Möckel, Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany
Prof. Dr. Devendra Nath Tiwari, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, India
Prof. Dr. José María Paz Gago, University of Coruña, Spain
Prof. Dr. Mario Perniola, University of Rome “Tor Vergata”, Italy
Prof. Dr. Traian D. Stănciulescu, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University Iassy, Romania
Prof. Dr. Steven Tötösy de Zepetnek, Purdue University & Ghent University
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Cultura
International Journal of Philosophy
of Culture and Axiology
Vol. 13, No. 2 (2016)
Editor-in-Chief
Nicolae Râmbu
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and Ananta Charan Sukla
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DOI 10.3726/b10729
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CROSS-CULTURAL INTERMEDIALITY:
FROM PERFORMANCE TO DIGITALITY

CONTENTS

Asunción LÓPEZ-VARELA AZCÁRATE 7
Introduction: Performance, Medial Innovation and Culture

Ananta Charan SUKLA 13
Indian Intercultural Poetics: the Sanskrit Rasa-Dhvani Theory

Krishna PRAVEEN and V. Anitha DEVI 19
Kathakali: The Quintessential Classical Theatre of Kerala

Jinghua GUO 27
Adaptations of Shakespeare to Chinese Theatre

Cyril-Mary Pius OLATUNJI and Mojalefa L.J. KOENANE 43
Philosophical Rumination on Gelede: an Ultra-Spectacle Performance

María VIVES AGURRUZA 53
The Cultural Impact of the Nanking Massacre in Cinematography:
On City of Life and Death (2009) and The Flowers of War (2011)

Qingben LI 67
China’s Micro Film: Socialist Cultural Production in the Micro Era

Annette THORSEN VILSLEV 77
Following Pasolini in Words, Photos, and Film, and his Perception
of Cinema as Language

Adile ASLAN ALMOND 83
Reading Rainer Fassbinder’s adaptation Fontane Effi Briest

Yang GENG and Lingling PENG 103
The Time Phenomenon of Chinese Zen
and Video Art in China: 1988-1998
Carolina FERNÁNDEZ CASTRILLO 125
Lyric Simultaneities: From “Words in Freedom” to Holopoetry

Janez STREHOVEC 137
Digital Art in the Artlike Culture and Networked Economy

Stefano CALZATI 153
Representations of China by Western Travellers in the Blogsphere

Horea AVRAM 173
Shared Privacy and Public Intimacy: The Hybrid Spaces
of Augmented Reality Art
10.3726/CUL2016-2_103
Cultura. International Journal of Philosophy of Culture and Axiology 13(2)/2016: 103–124

The Time Phenomenon of Chinese Zen
and Video Art in China: 1988-1998

Yang GENG
School of Architecture &Fine Art Dalian University of Technology,
Ganjingzi District, Dalian, China
[email protected]

Lingling PENG
School of Architecture &Fine Art Dalian University of Technology,
Ganjingzi District, Dalian, China
sunshaine @qq.com

Abstract. As a response to the problems of language in Chinese modern and avant-
garde art from 1988 to 1998, early video art reclaimed the independence of language
from social reality and political influence and established it on the basis of the time
phenomenon. By comparing the category of time in the Western philosophical
tradition and in Chinese traditional thought, we find that the “immediacy” of Zen
provides a hermeneutical approach to the nature of language as a reflective medium,
closely related to the silent experience. In line with the three basic principles of
transcendental Zen, video media purifies body language into the immaterial
language in three ways – through disembodied video movement, the de-objectified
video image, and discontinuous video narrative.
Key words:Atemporal Present, Chinese Video Art, Zen

INTRODUCTION

Inspired by the reflections on the problems of language in Chinese
modern and avant-garde art from 1988 to 1998, early video art was
originally established by reclaiming the independence of art language
from the realm of social reform and political influence (Wen Pulin,
2012). At the end of 1980, there were two milestone events in the history
of Chinese modern art. The first was the “Grand Earthquake” organized
by Wen Pulin in 1988, described as a farewell party to the 20th century.
The second was the “China Avant-Garde Art Exhibition” in Beijing
in February 1989, the only time avant-garde artists appeared at the
National Art Gallery. Both of these large-scale art events heralded the
end of the revolutionary and pioneering role of modern and avant-garde
art in China, and they aggressively argued for a cynical backlash against
idealism-associated art practices based on social reality and ideology.
103
Y. Geng, L. Peng / The Time Phenomenon of Chinese Zen and Video Art in China

These events formed the backdrop from which early video art
emerged, as the pioneering video artist Zhang Peili proclaimed that
the purification of art language arises from contemplations on the
interrelation between the nature of language and the “immediacy” of
consciousness, which exists as the time phenomenon.
As consciousness moves in time, it has been supposed that the
nature of language, as the trace of movements of consciousness, would
be traced to the intuitive time phenomenon that gains visibility from the
self-evident consciousness. By comparing the category of time in the
Western philosophical tradition and in Chinese traditional thought, we
find that the intuitive “immediacy” of the transcendental experience
evoked by the sudden awakening of Chinese Zen contradicts the finite
duration of motion or successive progression of the spirit in the Western
tradition. From the perspective of Chinese Zen, the transcendental
experience defines the passing moment as the atemporal present, which
is characterized as repetitive, occasional, and ahistorical. According to
fundamental principles for realizing the “immediacy” of transcendental
experience, this experience provides a hermeneutic approach to
understanding the nature of language in the presence of an atemporal
present in which embodied language and abstract concepts are
prevented. Furthermore, this experience provides an intuitive approach
to video media, and as an independent language, it is dematerialized
as the pure and sensible form of the atemporal present through
the following: 1) the disembodied video movement, which is as
homogeneous as the mechanical movement of objects and is achieved
by eliminating sensations and perception from body language. The
meaningless boredom of disembodied video movement directly
demonstrates the repetition of the atemporal present; 2) the de-
objectified video images, which are derived from the instability of the
interplays between individual behavior and images. The alogic of the de-
objectified video images reveals that consciousness is unconsciously
reflected in the occasionality of the atemporal present; and 3) the
discontinuous video narrative, which is derived from the rhetorical
means of the linguistic re-arrangement of dialog and discourse. Although
the dialog and discourse preserve certain distinctions in terms of
perception, social community, and traditional cultures, their re-
arrangement liberates the sense and meanings from the restraints
of history and narrative logic, noting the ahistorical and nonlinear
framework of the atemporal present.
104