Thesis (M. Phil.)--University of Hong Kong, 2008. / Also available in print.

Thesis (Ed. D.)--University of Hong Kong, 2007. / Title proper from title frame. Also available in printed format.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2005. / Title from first page of PDF file. Document formatted into pages; contains xvii, 298 p.; also includes graphics (some col.) Includes bibliographical references (p. 211-217). Available online via OhioLINK's ETD Center

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Harvard University, 1999. / Adviser: Norman Bryson. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Western Sydney, 2003. / "A thesis submitted in full completion of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, Department of Cultural Histories and Futures, University of Western Sydney" Includes bibliography.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2008. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

In this thesis, I argue that traditional Chinese thinking and its manner of approaching art can be successfully expanded onto a different platform: digital media art. My research (both in theory and practice) shows how this transformation expands the notions of time and space and forges new interdisciplinary correlations by addressing traditional Chinese culture in four different but interrelated manifestations: the philosophy of Dao, calligraphy, painting and sculpture. As a result, I claim that digital media can shift the notions of time and space from traditional Chinese thinking into contemporary digital art. Conversely, the digital concept of time and space can be interpreted by an analysis of (i) the traditional Chinese philosophy of Dao, so as to understand how ancient Chinese perceived the universe of time and space; (ii) four areas of Chinese art addressed in my theoretical and practical research (as elaborated in subsequent chapters). For example, a new understanding of ‘scroll format’, ‘play-appreciation’ and Chinese digital art has been introduced through my own practice. In fact, this direction has not been sufficiently dealt with in the past, and deserves more attention in the future. The thesis demonstrates how my practical research was heavily influenced and contextualized by my theoretical research, while the result of my practical artwork applies, expands and transforms that theory. This thesis aims, both theoretically and practically, at providing the reader with a new experience – the perception of the notions of time and space inherent in traditional Chinese thinking – by combining these concepts with digital technology.  Many different methods used in traditional Chinese scroll painting and calligraphy have in their day investigated and developed new ideas of time and space – e.g. multiple perspectives, binary visual modes, visible and invisible spaces, reversed images and inverted vision. All of these concepts could be further extended through digital moving images and interactive art in order to provide the audience with a new spatiotemporal dimension as an enhancement of visual experience and knowledge.

Through my experimental practice (i.e. interactive art, moving images, workshop and exhibitions), I have illustrated how digital art and digital technology can build on the notions of guan (觀; ‘to observe’), and you (遊; [1] ‘to tour’, ‘to travel’; or [2] ‘to roam’, ‘to saunter’). Furthermore, digital art can help viewers use the notions of play and appreciation – wan shang (玩賞, ‘play-appreciation’) – in Chinese context exhibition spaces. By exploiting this new dimension of experience, contemporary Chinese artists will, it is hoped, be able to introduce the spirit of traditional Chinese thinking to digital platforms, creating a guide that not only broadens the notions of time and space for digital media artists and audiences, but also forges new correlations between the various disciplines of philosophy and media art.

This thesis, therefore, rests on three investigative pillars: (1) contextual analysis through the history of Chinese art and – to a lesser extent – Western art; (2) the possibilities of modern digital media art; (3) analysis and application of the Chinese philosophical tradition (art theory and the notion of time and space) to elucidate and develop the interface between traditional Chinese and modern digital art. The result of my research has shown that what emerges from – and also motivates – the investigation is an understanding that digital art (moving images and interactive art) is an appropriate and effective medium for the communication and deepening of Chinese cultural awareness. My research structure and development is divided into six steps as follows: Firstly, in developing this thesis, I posit that the ideas of time and space [Chinese terms and terminologies: shi jian (時間,‘time’), kong jian (空間, ‘space’), and yu zhou (宇宙, ‘the universe’)] have been handled in traditional Chinese scroll painting and calligraphy through the application of multiple perspectives, binary visual modes, visible and invisible space, the passing of time, and non-linear narratives. When these potentials are reproduced by media artists, novel insights, experiences and knowledge about time and space are re-interpreted for their audiences, while the history of time and space tends to collapse. Secondly, I examine the idea of the ‘Yellow Box’, whose original aim was to suggest a novel approach to the understanding of the relation between contemporary Chinese artworks and museum-based exhibition space. I argue, however, that such a direction does not consider the potential of digital media art, and my practical projects demonstrate that the ‘Yellow Box’ idea still has room for further development in its application to digital art history. Moreover, the analysis of time and space offered here in the context of my own media-art production process (custom software and hardware) can benefit other researchers and artists. The attempt to illustrate Chinese art theories and to document and reflect upon different ways of perceiving the position and role of the audience can provide a unique and fruitful insight into the incorporation of Chinese thinking and manners into media art practice. Thirdly, I analyse the correlation between traditional art and contemporary digital media art in relation to time. I first illustrate how multiple spatiotemporal experiences merge into one pictorial space in terms of non-linear narrative in some significant traditional Chinese art pieces, and then argue that digital art can actually help to re-interpret the traditional Chinese notion of time in a modern dimension. The results of my study reflect how the notions of (1) cycle, (2) non-linear narrative, and (3) ‘play-appreciation’ in ancient Chinese art correlate to the elements of ‘looping’ and ‘layering of content’ in digital art, which allow viewers to have real-time experience of ‘time passing and transitioning’. My analysis, however, also indicates that some contemporary Asian digital artworks (all relating to time transition) have not yet considered the viewer’s spatiotemporal experience in relation to such idea as ‘play-appreciation’ through viewers’ bodily engagement. Fourthly, I examine the spatial correlations between Chinese and media art, and argue that there are many correlations between the past and contemporary Chinese art in the ways in which viewers’ virtual and physical experiences have been applied. I analyse how the idea of ‘two different positions of the viewer’, through painting, reliefs and gunpowder in China, correlates with digital media art today. Such correlation allows the artist to play with the idea of ‘multiple identities’ through digital media (e.g. dual and multiple screens). The results of the analysis reveal a strong correlation between traditional art forms and modern digital media art that permits the artist and the viewer to manipulate the idea of ‘multiple identities’ through dual and multiple screens in both real and virtual spaces. 
Reflecting this, my practical project demonstrates how pictorial and virtual space function as part of one’s cultural identities through viewers’ bodily engagement. For example, in line with my experience of multiple-identities in relation to my own Indonesian-Chinese background on the one hand, and the ‘upstairs culture’ of Hong Kong on the other, I combined a series of fragmentary stills and moving images in the ‘Upstairs / Downstairs’ project (2004-2012) to demonstrate how digital technology can help visualize the notions of multiple viewpoints through multiple screens. From there I went on to ask whether my Asian cultural background could help transform traditional visual experiences onto a digital platform by integrating a sense of ambiguity and multiple identities.

This dissertation presents a cultural history of U.S.-China relations between 1876 and 1930 that analyzes the politics attending the formation of the category we call “Chinese art” in the United States today. Interest in the material and visual culture of China has influenced the development of American national identity and shaped perceptions of America’s place in the world since the colonial era. Turn-of-the-century anxieties about U.S.-China relations and geopolitics in the Pacific Ocean sparked new approaches to the collecting and study of Chinese art in the U.S. Proponents including Charles Freer, Langdon Warner, Frederick McCormick, and others championed the production of knowledge about Chinese art in the U.S. as a deterrent for a looming “civilizational clash.” Central to this flurry of activity were questions of epistemology and authority: among these approaches, whose conceptions and interpretations would prevail, and on what grounds? American collectors, dealers, and curators grappled with these questions by engaging not only with each other—oftentimes contentiously—but also with their counterparts in Europe, China, and Japan. Together they developed and debated transnational forms of expertise within museums, world’s fairs, commercial galleries, print publications, and educational institutes. The collaboration and competition between them based on evolving definitions of rigor and objectivity produced two significant results. First, the creation of knowledge about Chinese art advanced informal imperialism over China through a more disciplined apprehension of its culture. Second, it facilitated the U.S. overtaking Europe as the new center for the collecting and study of Chinese art in the West. This project thus explains not only the evolution of a field of knowledge, but also the transformation of the United States into an international power at the intersection of geopolitics and culture in the first decades of the early twentieth century. Five chapters focus on the period during 1900 and 1920 when interest in and institution building around Chinese art flourished in the United States. Chapter one offers a prelude to changes to come in the early 1900s by documenting the participation of late nineteenth-century American collectors, whose tastes concentrated on Chinese ceramics, in transatlantic circuits of collecting and scholarship that were then dominated by Europeans. Chapter two recounts the creation of the American Asiatic Institute and the life of its founder, Frederick McCormick, to highlight the geopolitical context that motivated Chinese art collecting in the U.S. during the 1910s. Chapter three examines the intersection between commerce and knowledge by showing how art dealers conveyed not only art objects, but also skills and information across the Pacific. Looking past the marquee names of famed dealers like Duveen Brothers and C.T. Loo reveals the exchanges and mutual dependency between Western and Chinese suppliers, clerks, and translators who were key to the formation of Chinese art collections and scholarship in the U.S. Chapter four traces the tension between cosmopolitanism and nationalism that, over the course of a decade, catapulted private and public collections in the U.S. over those in Europe in a kind of Chinese art “arms race.” As chapter five shows, however, American authority over Chinese art was far from secure. In particular, conflicts over the selection and display of Chinese paintings at the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco underscore the contingent limitations of this authority. The epilogue presents the 1920s and 1930s as a turning point in the professionalization of Chinese art that foreclosed earlier ideas and practices as insufficiently rigorous—and, in the process, surrendered an older vision for art to reform international relations.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Southern California, 2007. / Adviser: Akira Lippit. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2008.