12-14 June 2020/ online
White Paper Manifesto
Sheung Yiu is a Hong-Kong-born, image-centered artist and independent researcher, based in Helsinki. His research interests concern the increasing complexity and agency of computer-generated imagery (CGI) in contemporary digital culture. Investigating cultural ideas and technical apparatuses beyond the pictorial surface, he problematizes the representational understanding of photography. He seeks to expand the image discourse by formulating the connections between photography theories and new forms of realism, object-oriented ontology, cybernetics, computational theory, and post-internet thinking. Engaging with artistic practice and multi-disciplinary collaboration as a mode of research, his works examine the production, aesthetics, poetics, and politics of CGI, such as computer vision, photogrammetry, remote sensing, and computer simulation.
White Paper Manifesto (aka On the Aesthetic of Delayed Production and Indefinite Planning) is an artwork in the form of an online white paper. The white paper exists as an ongoing google document, open to comment, ready for further edits and constantly updated. The artwork outlines planning as an artistic approach and situates artists in the current ever-hostile socio-political climate characterized by late capitalism, network culture, institutional failure, and the climate crisis. The white paper rethinks the logic of exhibiting and art production in this day and age. The white paper views proposal, as opposed to art production, as a valid artistic practice to navigate the current calcified art institutions and a starting point to imagine new economic systems for artists. Following up on the institutional critique of conceptual art from the 60s, it advocates for an ecosystem that accommodates emerging forms of art - 'the art of delayed production (and indefinite planning)'. The project argues that planning exemplifies the oscillation between pure imagination and corporeal production, between jaded cynicism and fresh-eyed hopefulness. By drifting away from art production, the white paper speculates on a value system based on planning as opposed to producing - the aesthetic of delayed production.
Collective Work
June 14, 11:00 (CEST)
June 14, 11:00 (CEST)
*For the Zoom meeting, please, keep your audio/ video mute. Use the applicable pronoun and a real/ nick name in the Zoom profile (e.g. Newton's Binomial/ they).
Meeting ID 515 660 8992 Password 487413
Meeting ID 515 660 8992 Password 487413
- The event lasts the whole day (or as long as the artist is awake). The artist will be present throughout the whole event. The artist might take short breaks away from the computer as he does daily chores.
- In the first hour, the event will be moderated by curators of Shelter Festival. The artist will give an introduction of White Paper Manifesto for 15-30 minutes at the beginning of the event.
- Participants are encouraged to download the steganographic image and read White Paper Manifesto (alpha 1.4) beforehand. Steganography instructions to decode the image will be provided via email on request.
- Participants can join the event anytime. During the event, the artist and the participants engage in a small group (or 1-on-1) discussion and co-write the COVID chapter of White Paper Manifesto. Participants can suggest content in the zoom comment section. Alternatively, participants can add comments to the Google document directly as they see fit.
- The event is not a performance. The artist wishes for a casual, stress-free discussion with the participants.
