Ho Rui An: In Search of Asia the Unmiraculous
Through a performative lecture, Ho Rui An shares his ongoing research for the project Asia the Unmiraculous that will be premiered in its entirety at the Gwangju Biennale 2018. His work departs from the 1997 Asian financial crisis to examine the conditions that made possible such regionalization of this international crisis. The project reflects on a transnational narrative of (Asian) miracle, crisis and recovery that has extended globally to the present day, with China emerging as the main protagonist. While in Europe, and after two years of field work across Thailand, South Korea, Japan, Singapore and Malaysia, the artist is now exploring the enduring forces of racialization at play in the European sovereign debt crisis. He is also considering the emergence of a regionalist imaginary encompassing both Asia and Europe, which manifests notably through China’s One Belt One Road initiative —a series of trade deals and infrastructure projects throughout Eurasia and the Pacific. Ho Rui An’s presentation will be followed by a conversation with Yuk Hui, teacher at the Leuphana University Lüneburg and visiting professor at the China Academy of Art. Ho Rui An is an artist and writer based in Singapore and Berlin. Across lectures, essays and films, he investigates the emergence, transmission and disappearance of images within contexts of globalization. He presented his works at various venues internationally such as The Kitchen, New York (2018), Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven (2018), Jakarta Biennale (2017), Sharjah Biennial 13 (2017), Haus de Kulturen der Welt, Berlin (2017), NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore (2017), Para Site, Hong Kong (2015), Kochi-Muziris Biennale (2014), and Witte de With, Rotterdam (2014). He is a recipient of the 2018 DAAD Berliner Künstlerprogramm. Yuk Hui studied Computer Engineering and Philosophy at the University of Hong Kong and Goldsmiths College in London, with a focus on philosophy of technology. Currently he teaches at the Leuphana University Lüneburg in Germany and is visiting professor at the China Academy of Art. Yuk Hui was previously a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute for Research and Innovation of the Centre Pompidou in Paris. He has written and published on philosophy of technology and media in periodicals such as Metaphilosophy, Research in Phenomenology, Deleuze Studies, Cahiers Simondon, Intellectica, Krisis , etc. He is co-editor of 30 Years after Les Immatériaux: Art, Science and Theory (2015), and author of On the Existence of Digital Objects (2016) and of The Question Concerning Technology in China. An Essay in Cosmotechnics (2016).