Thesis PlanB (M.S.)--University of Wisconsin--Stout, 2009. / 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 explores the aesthetics of contemporary Indigenous identity— its various manifestations, simulations, hybridizations, (dis)appearances, and liminalities. It is a project about the lived experience of ancestry conceived of through narratives of shapeshifting, virtuality, sacrifice, hauntings and possession. This project is representative of a period of time in an on-going journey that began long before these first words were written…and one that I intend will continue long after this book’s completion. The methodological approach to this work is multifaceted, encompassing the fields of Indigenous philosophy, digital media art and cultural studies. It is a project comprised of several interrelated strands of theoretical speculation, philosophical inquiry and creative engagement. This dissertation is in many ways an autobiographical text—a meditation on my own Kanien’kehaka (Mohawk) heritage and the spaces I occupy in the world as Onkwehonwe (an Indigenous person). At its core it is about exploring different modes of engagement with my own ancestral ‘territories’, while at the same time it endeavors to ask larger questions about collective memory, community, and cultural inheritance. In being representative of a journey, the interrelated strands of writings in this text are meant to be traversal, and are about surveying and mapping different intellectual and creative territories. This text is about crossing interdisciplinary zones of theoretical inquiry that occur at the intersection and hybridization of Indigenous and Western philosophies, contemporary First Nations performance art and post-structuralist theory. It is a work comprised of ebbs and flows, movements, refrains, and cascades of articulation that interpenetrate and cross over into one another. This text is therefore best thought of as a series of theoretical passageways—a multiplicity of thoughts and critical engagements in motion, translation and conversion. It must be said that the traversals and crossings in this text are not necessarily about establishing a synthesis between differing ideologies, philosophies or cosmologies. It is not intended to be dichotomous, but rather should be read as a remix-theory that passes in-between different fields of critical inquiry. For while on the one hand this text seeks to explore different zones of intellectual and creative proximity, it is also a work that emerges from within a multitude of contradictions and myriad incommensurabilities. / Graduate

Designers of information communication technologies (ICTs) in public space often fall into the trap of designing only for the "flaneur," an unembedded mobile subject in the generic global city. They deracinate the experience of space and support the global flâneur as the paradigmatic deracinated subject. In this thesis I propose a specific vision of "en-racinating" media, that is media that takes the specificity of place seriously. A careful consideration of public art can help us in this endeavor by leveraging the artistic notion of "site specificity" in the most culturally grounded meaning of the term. I examining three public digital media/information-based public art works through the lens of urban informatics in order to see how the works do or do not en-racinate experience in a specific city: Atlanta