Where are you from? Identity Boundaries and Moving Image

LOOP PROFESSIONAL MEETINGS Date and hours: Friday 3 de June, 17 – 18:30 Venue: Hotel Catalonia Ramblas, Carrer Pelai 28, Barcelona

Title: Where are you coming from? Identity boundaries and the moving image Moderator: Menene Gras, Director of Culture and Exhibition, Casa Asia Participants Christine Van Assche, Chief Curator, Centre Pompidou Elke Reinhuber, Assistant Professor and Researcher, Nanyang University in Singapore Hayoun Kwon, Visual Artist Imma Prieto, Curator / Art Critic Jamie Wyld, Director, videoclub Jinsuk Suh, Director, Nam Jun Paik Art Center Moritz Cheung, videoclub Roberto Cerisia, Gallerist, Aike Dellarco Tao Hui, Artist 1

Meeting report by Gisela Chillida TAGS: global identities, culture and location, nationality and identification, moving people and moving images The talk focused on how globally distributed world is shaping our identities. We explored how moving (online) images are blurring our borders and the way they are transforming our boundaries in something fluid and in constant change. Territories are now something both virtual and physical, how is people communicating in this new “world” and what should be the role of art and, more specifically, of the moving image in that context? We finally addressed issues related to identity and nationality, specially focusing on eastern situation.

1) Nationality: culture, history and the power of the past.

Does it make sense to speak about nationality in a global system? It seems we are more and more moving towards a global world that is blurring our identities and making our nationalities less obvious and more homogeneous. Nonetheless, it’s a fact that in the actual world, there’s still tension within countries (like Spanish-Catalan situation or English-Scottish one) and we sadly can still speak about conflict situations between North Korea or South Korea, between Spain and Latinoamerica or between or Eastern Europe territories… But, how our national boundaries are being reflected on the Internet?

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Memory and heritage is something we cannot ignore. Despite moving towards future, our past (culture, history, conflicts…) has an impact on our present.

Western-Eastern: sometimes, European ideology is imposed. One of the participants work deals with the history of Korean towards the query of geopolitical situation in her country.

Language is still crucial because we need the same language to understand each other. It is especially significant when we are in an international context. Language is always a gap not easy to solve.

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The present report aims to provide a summary of the discussions that took place during the meeting. It does not aim to be a transcription of the conversations, so we emphasize its summary character.

2) National-international and vice versa: thinking otherwise: fluid identities in a global system.

How is the Net affecting our national identities? Can we still speak about nationalities in the online world? How familiar are we with other cultures and nationalities?

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There is a big difference within China but it’s all a matter of context, it is a very fluid country, it is changing constantly. What makes Chinese artists different? Is an important topic, small details are significant. Globalization is making Asia more homogeneous, in fact, all asia is changing extremely fast, but there is still a gap between different nations.

Images are produced in a different way. Japan, North Korea or South Korea are more influenced by pop culture. China is very idea oriented.

3) Local Being; Global thinking: so faraway, so close Why do we need to know the nationality of the artist to understand his/her work? Nationality seems to be something fundamental since it gives us the cultural framework.

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Specificities of some national conflicts: there exist microdifferences that might pass unnoticed internationally but that are still important in a closer range. For example, regarding storytelling, Japan prefers quality, well produced images and is specially interested in the final outcome. China, is more idea-oriented and gives more importance to topics. On the other hand, Hong Kong is mainly focused on politics and national issues.

Art and location: locating people in a virtual space. How important is to locate an artwork?

To know where it comes from? It is crucial to understand both the artwork and the artist statement. Someone says that for videoart knowing location is not that important, which is interesting is how you “think the World” and your “location”, how you “feel” your location, not how or where the other locate you. For others, every creation is related to its context but the more important it is, the more able is it to transcend it. It is

4) Technology issues: Visualization and communication. Production and distribution.

Technology has revolutionized the distribution system. Now we have more options and new opportunities.

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Creating and engaging new publics is crucial. The new system goes together with a new type of audience. We should find the best way to distribute moving images in that virtual space.

Accessibility and protection to artist is fundamental. He should decide how its works is exhibited and shared. He might prefer quality or might consider more important spreading its work. Sometimes, the context is important and you need to experience the real space.

Netflix is an interesting platform because you pay a small account and you can access to a lot of films and TV series. There also exist platforms where you can upload your videos and then decide who is watching it with a password.

Anyway, management and control must be guaranteed. Artist work needs respect above all.

In the emergent global system, it seems that distinguishing between high and low cultures makes no sense.

Community system is better than it used to be. Now we have more opportunities and can do more things.

Diasporas: moving images are especially interesting when they are related to moving people.

5) Globalization and capitalism: speaking about money •

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Global capitalism is a bad thing. What we need to do is to globalize art and make it accessible to everybody. Nowadays, distinguishing between public and private archiving is not useful anymore. In the past, only a few were deciding what was important to storage, what was interesting to keep… that’s why internet world is democratizing culture. Now, everybody can decide what to storage. We can write our own history, independently of the Rich. Youtube is a democratic tool since it breaks down boundaries.

New technologies gave us the opportunity to share images for free, now we can spread all over the world films and videos for a small account of money. That is, they are cheaper to produce and it is cheaper to share them. Traditional cinema needs money to be made.

Nonetheless, others say that new media still needs money.

Regarding income, we should consider an exhibition fee.

6) Enclosed spaces and forbidden lands: the experience of border. Limits and frontiers For some countries, the idea of border is crucial because of their location. They experience what means not owning the right to cross a border… that might be a source of tensions.

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North Korea and South Korea. For South Koreans, North Korean is a forbidden land where you are not allowed. In some way, they are really close and far at the same time.

Thinking the border depends on you are located. In Latin American, is an extremely complex situation and a source of tensions and conflicts. Mexico to USA. It is interesting try to find bridges, think together. It’s important going there, talking to native people.

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Identity issues are a very complex topic. On one hand, we are moving towards a global society, interfaced net, cross-influenced culture… on the other hand, micro-differences are here to stay. In western territories as well as northern countries, small characteristics are still noticeable.

Technology is giving us new ways of experiencing moving images we need to learn how to take advantage of it Artist desires are key to decide how its work is shared and exhibited In comparison with other past times, nowadays moving image is much more democratic since more people have access to it and we can decide how and what we share.