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You Mi

A few thoughts on new materialism(s) and Confucianism(s)

Abstract:

My talk attempts to illustrate a few conceptual approaches to Confucianism relative to today’s technologized society. On a “micro” level, I question whether Confucianism and speculative philosophy are reconcilable on the question of technology/automation, using the example of Whitehead. While both systems favour processuality over fixed entities in their analyses of beings and phenomena of the world, can computational algorithmic processes, or “computational thinking,” be recast in light of the Neo-Confucian notions of gan, in dialogue with Whiteheadian notions of prehension and speculative reason? On a historical level, I will examine the question of how desire is tamed within the Chinese cosmological order (as expressed in the Chinese “philosophy of technology”), in the larger context of untied desire in late capitalism. I contend that today’s omnipresent technologization presents a condition which is difficult to surmount by returning to a previous world order. Finally, I will look into the creativity of matter itself, which overspills the frame of scientism, to propose a Confucian approach – in tandem with new materialism – that widens our understanding of science and technology.

 

Bio:

You Mi is a Beijing-born curator, researcher, and assistant professor at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne. Her long-term research and curatorial project takes the Silk Road as a figure for deep-time, deep-space and nomadic imageries. Under this rubric she has curated a series of performative programmes at the Asian Culture Center Theater in Gwangju, South Korea and the inaugural Ulaanbaatar International Media Art Festival, Mongolia (2016). Her academic interests are in performance philosophy, science and technology studies, and philosophy of immanence in Eastern and Western traditions. Her writings appear in Performance Research, PARSE, MaHKUscript: Journal of Fine Art Research, among others.

由宓:关于新唯物主义及儒家的几种进路

摘要:

在报告中,我将就儒家与科技化社会的交集提出一些思维进路。在微观的层面上,我将探索儒家与speculative philosophy在科技的问题上是否可以调和。虽然二者在分析事物时皆采用过程哲学的方法,而非以个体考量之,但计算机算法这种过程,或称“计算机思考”,是否可以以新儒家的“感”,兼之怀德海的prehension和speculative reason来理解呢?在历史层面上,我将检视中国宇宙哲学中对欲望的压迫,以及其在“中国技术哲学”之中的表达,并把其置于晚近资本主义对欲望之解放的背景中。今天的普遍技术化构成一种前提,而无法通过回到前一世界格局而克服。最后,我将以超越科技至上主义的物质本身的创造性为通路提出儒家——与新唯物主义异曲同工——开拓我们关于科技视野的可能性。

简介:

由宓是来自北京的策展人,研究员,现任科隆媒体艺术学院助理教授,她也是激发研究所的特别顾问。她的授课方向是跨历史,跨文化视野下的艺术和媒介理论。她的长期策展与研究课题以丝绸之路作为一种深度时间、深度空间,去中心化以及游牧精神的象征。在此框架下她策划了韩国光州亚洲文化文化中心剧场开幕季的一系列表演项目,以及蒙古乌兰巴托首届媒体艺术节(2016年)。 她的学术研究课题包括表演哲学,科学与技术的人文社会学研究,以及东西方哲学传统中的内在性哲学。她的论文及文章见于Performance Research, PARSE , MaHKUscript: Journal of Fine Art Research等。

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