Art and Cosmotechnics

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1RiiNmq4aZvuk1dD4stIXWoq50eYinVQz/view?usp=sharing

By Yuk HUI

 

A:

 

The new book of Yuk Hui “Art and Cosmotechnics”  reconceptualizes the diversity of artistic experience through Greek tragedy and the logic of control, the aesthetics of Chinese landscape painting (山水, shanshui, painting of mountains and water), the challenges posed by art and new technologies, and discussions around artificial intelligence and robotics. Departing from Hegel’s thesis on the end of art and Heidegger’s assertion of the end of philosophy, Art and Cosmotechnics travels an unfamiliar trajectory of thought to arrive at a new relation between art and technology.

 

 

 

He begins his book with one decibel quotation from Paul Klee’s book“On Modern Art”: The artist is perhaps, without really wanting to be , a philosopher.” and another one from Fancois Jullien’s book “This Strange Idea of the Beautiful”: “ Because it is the artists, not the philosophers, who are the first adventurers, or, let’s say, the pioneers of thoughts.

He does a good job of connecting the topics of art and technology and puts the artist in the position of a pioneer.

 

 

It is interesting to note that his angle of entry into the discussion of AI and robotics begins with Greek tragedy. First of all, he mentions that Greek tragedy originated from “crisis in the form of conflict” and that the birth of philosophy was “fundamentally a response to increasingly radical oppositions and contradictions coming out of history progress”. YUK HUI refers to tragedy in its dramatic form expresses the contradiction between the necessity of destiny and the contingency of human freedom. This contradiction was projected onto the opposition of gods and human,s state and family. As in the Greek tragedy Oedipus, this tragedy can be seen not as only an art form, but also a social institution.

 

The greatest incarnation of the tragist is situating oneself in an inhuman reality that marks a limit to be laughed at and overcome. It is an affirmation of the opposition between the human and the beyond-human, which does not rely on the “human enhancement” of today, but on a development beyond the limits of the five senses, which in Nietzsche’s philosophy is called “rausch or ecstasy”.

The “ecstasy” brought by this tragic art triggers a sensual perception for me to delve into AI and machine automation, which can be theatrical or even “beyond reason” approach.

 

 

Thus the author talks about Chinese philosophy, which is non-dualistic and does not have one way of solving problems as in the Greek tragedy. So do we inspire the intellectual intuition of machines to develop a stronger and more powerful artificial intelligence? The author says that such a temptation may bring risks, but instead it is better to try to understand how the Chinese mind can enhance the concept of intelligence and intelligence itself.

 

The above is just the beginning of my reading this book, where I found an entry point into a deeper study of the topic of art and cosmotechnics – a hierarchy from intuition to reason; moreover, the digitalization and its almost infinite possibilities in the context of art and technology forced me to start questioning it.

 

Mood Board:

 

 

Dream Review:

An entry point into drama or film — a perceptual research method

To study the combination of human body and artificial limb/prosthetic in the way of experience and perception, and to explore the possibility of working together

（limb: an arm or leg of a person or four-legged animal, or a bird’s wing.
Prosthetic: denoting an artificial body part, such as a limb, a heart, or a breast implant.）

Talk to AI, study robot behavior in an emotional way

A good way to plan for the future, not based on consumerism and egoism

（Bernard Stiegler

Stiegler outlines his concepts of “general organology” (a way of thinking the co-individuation of human organs, technical organs, and social organisations) and “genealogy of the sensible” (a way of thinking the historicity of human desire and aesthetics).）

Study –How to live and work better with intelligent robots

 

My goals are

A theatre workshop – a sensual entry point

A performance where the body and prosthesis work in tandem

A live performance with audiovisual impact

An exhibition and seminar on this research