The Work of Lu Yang in Transnational Chinese and Global Contemporary Art and Visual Culture

Call for Papers: Special Journal Issue
Editors: Livia Monnet (University of Montreal), Gabriel Remy-Handfield (University of Montreal), Ari Heinrich (Australian Normal University)

One of "the most innovative and imaginative artists coming out of China right now" (New York Times, November 18, 2020), Lu Yang ( 陸揚) (1985-) has provocatively re-envisioned the notions of identity, the body, sex and gender in complex, layered and at the same time highly entertaining videos and multimedia installations. His work also reflects on darker themes like death, destruction and reincarnation. Lu Yang creates experimental virtual environments where cutting-edge technologies meet philosophical considerations inspired by Buddhism. The goal of this special issue is to explore the different aspects of Lu Yang's works and aesthetic in the context of Chinese and East Asian contemporary art and global visual cultures. We encourage proposals by scholars, art critics, curators, and graduate students working in and across the fields of Chinese and East Asian contemporary art and visual cultures, cultural studies, feminist and queer/LGBTQIA+ theory, new media and postinternet/postdigital art, game studies, religious studies, Chinese and East Asian cinemas and more. The editors, Livia Monnet, Gabriel Remy-Handfield, and Ari Heinrich, will submit the selected contributions to venues such as The Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art, Journal of Chinese Cinemas, and Animation: An Interdisciplinary Journal. Abstracts of 250-300 words accompanied by a short list of references and a brief bio should be sent to the following email address by March 31, 2021:

luyangcfpgmail.com

Proposals could explore topics such as the following:
- Sex, gender, a/sexuality in Lu Yang's work
- Feminist and queer/LGBTQIA+ approaches to Lu Yang's work.
- Bodies, materialities, identities.
- The remediation and/or repurposing/re-envisioning of Japanese media mix and pop cultural forms (manga, anime, video games) and various forms of Western and Chinese/Sinophone/East Asian popular cultures.
- The work of Lu Yang in the context of video game culture, artgames and artists'games
- Intermediality, transmediality, remediation, transdisciplinarity in the work of Lu Yang
- The work of Lu Yang and its relationship to Buddhism, spirituality, and religion.
- The work of Lu Yang in relation to biotechnology, the neurosciences, and scientific experimentations.
- The work of Lu Yang and its approach to virtual reality and artificial intelligence.
- Curating the works of Lu Yang in China and around the world.
- Reception and influence of his work in China and in the global contemporary arts and visual cultures.
- Futurity, futurism and Sino-futurism in Lu Yang
- Critical Posthumanism, Transhumanism and other forms of post-humanisms.
- Animation in the work of Lu Yang

Other topics are also welcome.

Contributions that have been selected for the special journal issue should be no longer than 4500 words + bibliography and should reach the editors by June 30, 2021.

Bibliography

Gladston, Paul. Contemporary Chinese Art: A Critical History. Reaktion Books, 2014

Guo, Sophie Xiaofei. "Doubting Sex: Examining the Biomedical Gaze in Lu Yang's Uterus Man." Immediations No.17 (2020) https://courtauld.ac.uk/research/publications/immediations/immediations-no-17-2020/sophie-xiaofei-guo

Huber, Jörg / Zhao Chuan (eds.): The Body at Stake. Experiments in Chinese Contemporary Art and Theatre. Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag, 2013

Kim Jihoon. "Digital and postdigital 3D animation in the contemporary Chinese art scene: Miao Xiaochun and Lu Yang." Journal of Chinese Cinemas 11, No.3 (2017): 227-242, DOI: 10.1080/17508061.2017.1376553

Kim, Jihoon. "Postinternet Art of the Moving Image and the Disjunctures of the Global and the Local: Kim Hee-cheon and Other Young East Asian Artists." CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 21, No. 7 (2019):
https://doi.org/ 10.7771/1481-4374.3657

Lamarre, Thomas. "The Animation of China: An Interim Report." Journal of Chinese Cinemas 11, No.2 (2017): 123–139 https://doi.org/10.1080/17508061.2017.1325121

Pollack, Barbara. Brand New Art From China: A Generation on the Rise. I.B.Tauris, 2018

Rémy Handfield, Gabriel. "The Aberrant Movements and Posthumanist Mutations of Body, Identity, and Matter in Lu Yang's Uterus Man". Screen Bodies 5, No.2 (2020)
https://doi.org/10.3167/screen.2020.050210

Young, Michael. "Where I work: Lu Yang" [online]. ArtAsiaPacific, No. 118 (May 2020): 84-87