Artful Engagement
Oxford Brookes University (Gipsy Lane Campus)
Modes of Expression and Representation in Chinese Calligraphy: Calligraphic Works as Aesthetic-object-cum-public-message and their Dynamics with Contexts of Use in the City of Hong Kong
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Chak-kwong Lau
Little research has been conducted on Hong Kong calligraphy. Previous works have largely treated calligraphy as a form of high art, produced and appreciated by only a small community of literati. As a result, it has been generally assumed that calligraphic art is of little importance except to a restricted circle of specialists. To compensate for this neglect of calligraphy’s wider significance, this paper examines calligraphic works in public venues around Hong Kong and alternative modes of expression with their contexts of use in the city. In the field of art history, conventional methodology of stylistic analysis is commonly adopted for research on Chinese calligraphy. In contrast, this paper’s new research methodology is inspired by the parameters of “geosemiotics” that eventually offers a more encompassing approach for examining and interpreting the relationships and synergistic effects of the following factors: 1) calligraphic aesthetics and style as semiotic resources for meaning making; 2) calligraphic expressions manifested in a wide range of material forms in physical and cyber spaces; 3) alternative modes of calligraphic expression; and 4) calligraphy’s social and cultural contexts and contexts of use in Hong Kong. Scrutinizing calligraphy as a form of aesthetic-object-cum-public-message that connotes more profound meanings pertinent to the city and city life, the new methodology thereby illuminates how calligraphy has been transformed from a literati-oriented, rarefied form of art with a restricted audience into a more accessible form of visual culture that reaches wider audiences, thus shedding light on what has shaped Hongkonger’s thoughts, values and identity.
Negotiating Identity: An Analysis of Grindr Users Self-Presentation Online through Static Profile Data View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session John Hodson
Digital intimates are not new. Yet we have continued to see the rapid development of how users define themselves on dating apps. The data included is based on five indepth interviews of Grindr users, whereby using a novel research methodology, were able to discuss their profile curation in detail, and their understanding of identity on Grindr. Gender and humour were of the most distinguished themes, and provided insights into thinking about how much dating app profile data, although static, can still offer huge amounts of analysis, and more so when talking to participants about their thought processes and negotiations while presenting themselves on dating app platforms. Ultimately, the link between sexual position and gender was inseperable for some users, and the inclusion of listing it led to participants needing to redefine their boundaries of gender and sexuality at times. Humour was used less consciously within users creative written descriptions of themselves, reflecting their insecurities.
The Virtual Ballet Studio: A Phenomenological Enquiry into the Domestic as Dance-Space
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Francesca Ferrer Best
The paper is based on an autoethnographic study of dancing via Zoom over the COVID-19 lockdown in Sydney, Australia. Its theoretical framework takes up Iris Marion Young's critical phenomenology and work on domestic space to think about certain focal points of the experience, such as having a room to move in, the floor, and the screen. The aim is to examine how important dance-space is to the experience of dancing, and what the specifics of our current situation have revealed about dancing that were obscured to a greater extent before: for instance, the embeddedness of a dancer in their context and what this means for thinking about privilege, as well as the curatorial work that goes into making domestic space an aestheticised dance-space. In this way, I propose that Zoom classes, as well as being a distinct new phenomenon, also have much to teach us about ‘conventional,’ pre-COVID dance practice.
