Image Flux: China

New Work in Video Art, Documentary Film, and Independent Film
November 15-18, 2006
Guangzhou (Canton), Peoples Republic of China

CALL FOR PARTICIPATION:
We invite proposals for participation in the form of creative works,
position statements, and academic papers. A full catalog of participating
individuals will be published and available at the conference.

Please mail 250 word abstracts/proposals for submissions as soon as
possible to mmcshanefgcu.edu <mailto:mmcshanefgcu.edu>
with subject line: Image Flux: China
Deadline for inclusion of your finalized work in catalog: October 28, 2006

Conference Website:
http://www.sedonaconversations.com/imagefluxchina.htm

Why China? Why Now?
Currently, there is a very important phenomenon in China based on Digital
Video and the relatively cheap way it is propagated. Artists and Directors
regularly shift and move DV copies in and out of universities and cities
all over China, among themselves, and internationally. Chinese historians,
practitioners, and critics are treating 1997-2002 as a prehistoric moment
in the new image production, calling it the DV Movement. The first phase
was important because it signified a loss of control by the official
system. Similar to the internet, there is a new wave in the production and
propagation of the digital medium and the discourse surrounding the medium.

Early on, this was largely due to what they call "folk videos," or simple
oral histories being recorded. This early emphasis on the personal and
interpersonal still remains intact, as there are, of course, the large
Hollywood style blockbuster films that speak to a completely different
audience.

What we see as an important, genre changing moment is based in the
individuals' empowerment to record, create, and propagate unofficial
narratives through Digital Media. This is true in the Fine Arts, in
Documentary Film, and Independent Film. The narratives are not overtly
political but rather deeply personal. It is through the individual stories
of coping with the exponential speed of change in society here that one
finds an important social phenomenon manifesting itself, and recording
itself.

The genres of Fine Art Video, Documentary Film, and Fictional Independent
Film, are also in dialog with each other. This is quite different than the
American or European system of image production. Similarly, there is a
diverse set of institutions participating in the critical discourse
surrounding the new image production, facilitated by the convergence of the
genres and the new media forms.

This phenomenon of "convergence" has been heralded by technology gurus for
years in the West, but merely as a utopian visionary construct among the
elite. Here in China, the New Media genres spontaneously converged, largely
due to the absence of existing structures for the dissemination, analysis,
and production of digital media.

We invite proposal for participation in the form of creative works,
position statements, and academic papers. A full catalog of participating
individuals will be published and available at the conference.

Collaborating Organizations:
American Consulate General, Guangzhou, P.R.C., Cultural Affairs United
States Council for the International Exchange of Scholars, Fulbright
Program Sedona Conference & Conversations American Film Institute (AFI)
Fielding Graduate University, Media Psychology Program Hong Kong America
Center Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts Guangdong Art Museum Zhongshan (Sun
Yat-sen) University University City, Guangzhou Orange Gallery Xin Yin
International Club (Site of the Guangzhou Triennial) Creative Factory

Participating artists:
Zhu Jia, Wang Goug Xin, ShiQing, Wang Zhen Hui, Cao Fei and Ou Ning, Jiang
Zhi, Hu Xin Yu, Gao Zi Peng, Liu Deng, Gao Shi Qiang, Sun Xun, Ni Ke Yun,
Cheng Ran, Wu Jun Youg, Jin Shan, Chen Wie, Tang Mao Houg, Dong Wen Sheng,
Shi Yong, Qiu Zhi Jie, Shu Hao Lun, Cui Ying, Bang Bang, Shi Gang and Zhu
Ye, Zhou Tao,

Curator:
Megan C. McShane, Ph.D. United Sates Fulbright Scholar. She holds an
endowed Fulbright in Art History from the Luce Foundation, and teaches
Modern and Contemporary Art History at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou
in the formidable History Department, with the support of Hong Kong Arts
Benefactor Leung Kit Wah. She has also lectured at the Chinese Academy of
Fine Arts in Beijing on American Art and Ecology artists. She has been a
fellow at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.,
a Violence Studies Fellow at Emory University, and she has worked with the
Rockefeller Center for the Analysis of Contemporary Culture, at Rutgers
University in New Jersey. Recently, she has lectured at such universities
as the Sorbonne, Cambridge, Oxford, the University of Chicago, U.C.L.A.,
the University of Helsinki and the Art Academy in Tallinn, Estonia. Her
current research interests cover the phenomenon of converging New Media in
China, where she currently lives and teaches.

_________________________________
Megan C. McShane, Ph.D.
Luce-Fulbright in Art History
Department of History
Sun Yat-Sen (Zhongshan) University
Guangzhou, Peoples Republic of China 510275
Tel: +86-20-84111886
Fax: +86-20-84113308
e-mail: mmcshanefgcu.edu