About One World Exposition
About the Project
Since its foundation in 1986, Videotage has established a reputation, locally and internationally, for its video and new media arts projects. Numerous curatorial programs in the past have only not mobilized artists, thinkers and audiences to cross geographical and cultural boarders between Hong Kong and the 'world', but they have also represented the entire spectrum of new media technology. One cannot imagine how many zillions of video frames, image pixels, sound bits and programming codes have been carried along on air flights and via telephone lines by our past projects. Despite these technological languages becoming the basic unit of communication between Videotage and the 'world', the traveling of frames, pixels, bits and codes also entwines the cultural delineations between the local and the international.
The emergence of contemporary Chinese art in the Shanghai Art Biennial and Guangzhou Triennial, along with the Beijing Olympics 2008 and the Shanghai World Exposition 2010 that instigated intense critical and economic attentions, has led Videotage to further instigate these kinds of global exchanges with an eye towards Chinese media art. One World Exposition will be the first substantial umbrella project that aims to explore Chinese media art from regional, national and global perspectives. Through a series of symposia, exhibitions, artist's talks, performances and screenings of Chinese media art from the Mainland and Greater China, this project will initiate dialogues between Chinese artists from different cultural backgrounds.
Situated at the Pearl River Delta as a Special Administrative Region of China, Hong Kong is always 'inside' and 'outside' the culture of Mainland China. By curating One World Exposition, Videotage hopes to leverage the strategic location of Hong Kong and re-engage contemporary Chinese art from the regional, national and global perspectives. Apart from viewing and representing Chinese art from the geopolitical position of the SAR, we also hope to re-think our identities through different concepts of Chinese culture. While media artists in Hong Kong have moved through different forms of technological and aesthetic genres, One World Exposition will be an eminent opportunity to self-reference Hong Kong media art in comparison to the various artistic and cultural movements of Greater China
Back to top
About Curators (in alphabetical order)
Isaac Leung
Isaac Leung is a practicing artist, curator and researcher in art and culture. Leung received an Honorary Fellowship of a Bachelor of Fine Arts at the New Media Art Department of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, the University of the Arts London. His passion in exploring issues in contemporary art began during his time in college. During 1998-2008, his artworks were exhibited in over 30 venues across the globe. His works were featured on National Public Radio (USA), and in Agence France-Presse (France), Chicago Tribune (USA), NY Arts Magazine (USA), Chicago Readers (USA) and the South China Morning Post (Hong Kong).
In 2006, Leung was appointed as a Board Director of Videotage. During his tenure, he initiated and participated in projects that included exhibitions, workshops, lectures, publications, online projects and symposia. Some of these are, 40 Years of Video Art in Germany and Hong Kong (Hong Kong and Germany), Borderline International Film Art Exhibition (Beijing, China), The 12th Venice Biennale International Architecture Exhibition (Venice, Italy; Hong Kong), Perpetual Art Machine (New York, USA), "97+10: HK Hand Baggage" (Shanghai, China), ISEA Festival (San Jose, USA) and Microwave International New Media Arts Festival (Hong Kong). In 2005, Leung was appointed as the working group consultant of the award-winning international exhibition “Body Movies in Hong Kong” that was presented by the Home Affairs Bureau, HKSARG. Leung was appointed as Advisor of the Digital Community of Prix Ars Electronica. The creative practice in artistic and curatorial projects has prompted him to conduct substantial research on art and culture. Apart from a video documentary that was funded by the Hong Kong Arts Development Council, his interdisciplinary project is being materialized as an academic thesis for a Master of Philosophy degree at the Lingnan University. Leung is currently a doctorate researcher at the School of Creative Media, the City University of Hong Kong, specializing in the contemporary Chinese art market.
Li Zhenhua
Li Zhenhua is a writer, independent curator, producer and artist specialised in new media and trans-media disciplines, living between Beijing, Shanghai and Zurich. Li is the founder of Laboratory Art Beijing (www.bjartlab.com) and the Mustard Seed Garden Productions (www.msgproduction.com). In 2010, he served as the Guest Curator and Chief Planner of Shanghai eARTS Festival, the most established new media arts festival in Mainland China. Li frequently participates and gives keynote speeches addressing the development of new media arts in the contemporary Chinese artscape held in leading galleries and museums across the globe, including ZKM Karlsruche (Germany, 2003), Walker Art Centre Minneapolis (US; as curator of the WAVE project), Guangzhou Museum (China; as participating artist of the Guangzhou Triennial 2005), National Art Museum of China (China; as producer for Synthetic Times: Media Art China 2008) and Nanjing Triennial 2008 (China; as curator). Li is also the curator for solo-exhibition for Yang Fudong (Dawn Mist, Separation Faith), Feng Mengbo, Hu Jieming and Aaajiao (at V2, Institute for the Unstable Media, Rotterdam at the Netherlands). Presented by plug.in, ‘Beam Me Up’ features one of his most recent artworks which is currently exhibited in Basel, Switzerland, an online project dealing with time and the perception of our daily life while questioning the ontology of human beings. Li is an advisor for Leonardo Journal since 2007 and was invited to be the Jury of Transmediale Award in 2010.
Back to topAbout Artistic Director
Ellen Pau
Ellen Pau studied in Radiography at the Hong Kong Polytechnic in 1982. But being a professional radiologist could not fulfill her creative obsessions with video art and media art. A self-taught video artist, her first debut 'Glove', a super-8mm video artwork, was made and screened internationally in 1984. Pau’s early works first appeared in local screening clubs and then resurfaced on the international arena starting in 1987. From there, Pau dedicated her life in video art to the development of media art in Hong Kong.
In 1986, she founded Videotage, a media art collective in Hong Kong, with Wong Chi-fai, May Fung and Comyn Mo, aiming at creating an umbrella organization for media artists, that facilitated artistic and cultural exchange and promoted video and media art in Hong Kong. Pau is also the founding director cum curator of the Microwave International New Media Arts Festival, which celebrates its 15th Anniversary in 2011.
Pau works as an independent cinematographer, curator, art critic and researcher focusing on Asian new media arts. She also works as an art consultant for her newly founded company Inter-Act Arts. Pau’s single channel videos and video installation works have been extensively exhibited worldwide in film festivals and art biennials. In 2000, 'Recycling Cinema' was selected and exhibited at the Hong Kong Pavilion in the 49th Venice Biennial. 'Recycling Cinema' challenges our perception of mono-direction movements in mainstream film.
Back to top
About Advisors (in alphabetical order)
Oscar Ho
Linda Lai
Qiu Zhijie
Shen Qibin
Zhang Peili
Back to topAbout Videotage
Asia’s New Media Art Collective since 1986
Videotage is a leading non-profit organisation in Hong Kong focusing on the presentation, promotion, production and preservation of video and media art, serving artists in the expanding technological art and culture network. Since 1986, Videotage has developed itself from an umbrella organization for media artists, to a network of media art and culture for cross-disciplinary cultural productions, and platform to facilitate international exchange.
With the continuous support from the Hong Kong Arts Development Council and other funders, Videotage organises exhibitions, workshops, performances, artist-in-residencies and exchange programs to bring media art closer to our everyday life. Curatorial projects not only takes place at Videotage’s office at the Cattle Depot Artist Village, or formerly at the Oil Street Artist Village, but expands to different public spheres – including shopping malls, schools, and in collaboration with museum and art centres locally and internationally.
VMAC (Video Media Art Collection) was officiated in 2008 with a mission to collect, preserve and build an extensive archive of the video art of Hong Kong. Representing more than 20 years of development in media art, VMAC, was opened to the general public in 2011, together with Best of Vidoetage series, a publication series that captures over 100 artists’ work in print of a highly significant educational value to the discourse of media archeology and art history in Hong Kong.
Videotage, a listed media art organisation in UNESCO, has been a long-term collaborator with other media art organizations to for the betterment of video art and new media art, locally and internationally. Videotage has been the strategic partner of Microwave International New Media Arts Festival, that celebrates its 15th Anniversary in 2011. Videotage has also been invited to participate in the Venice Biennale of Architecture, Gwangju Biennial, Guangzhou Triennial, ISEA Festival and etc. International exposure has also been manifested in the form of exchange programs with the British Arts Festival, the Goethe-Institut, also partnership project Remake HK, Project Unlimited with the Guggenheim Museum on Youtube in 2010.
Videotage conceives new media art as a cultural movement that brings art and technology productions to nodes of intersections in the digital and network era. To promote a free and open DIY culture, Videotage hosted Dorkbot HK in 2010. The network will be a hotbed of creativity and innovation, where artists, technologists, academics, and practitioners from both private and public spheres, actively engage with technology and address contemporary social, political and cultural concerns. With the success of Wikitopia in 2010, Videotage will continue exploring how citizen media and social media reshape humankind in the era of network culture. We will also continue providing service and support to media artist and the general public for the development of media art and strengthen the position of Videotage as a cultural hub of knowledge transfer for art, culture and technology in the local, regional and international milieu.