Lai Chiu-han Linda

Lai Chiu-han Linda
Linda Lai, 2007
Born	Hong Kong, SAR
Nationality	Chinese
Education	Chinese University of Hong Kong (BA), Wheaton College (MA), New York University (Ph.D.)
Known for	Video Art, Media Art, Contemporary Art, Cultural Studies, Cinema Studies, Microhistory

Lai Chiu-han Linda (黎肖嫻) (or Linda Chiu-han Lai, family name 'Lai') is a Hong Kong-based academic, artist, curator and art historian working at the intersections of experimental video art, interactive media and cultural history. Lai is Associate Professor at the School of Creative Media at the City University of Hong Kong.^[1] She is the founder and artistic director of the Writing Machine Collective.

Lai received her B.A. in English Language & Literature at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and pursued her M.A. (Wheaton College, Illinois - communication & journalism) and Ph.D. (New York University - Cinema Studies) in the USA.^[2]

Lai's artworks are primarily experiments with various forms of video and installation, based on her research in experimental historiography. Her works have been exhibited widely in Hong Kong and worldwide in cities including Shanghai, Torun, Paris, Barcelona, Kuala Lumpur, London, Taipei, Soeul, New York City and Montreal, and several times in International Competition at the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen (2005, 2009, 2011).

Selected publications

• 2013: World Film Locations:Hong Kong, coedited with Kimburley Wing-yee Choi (Intellect Books) : ISBN 978-1-78320-105-1
• 2008: "Attempting a history of (new) media arts for Hong Kong: archaeology, literacy and education for artists" for the Hong Kong Visual Arts Yearbook 2007 (2008) : ISBN 978-962-7055-14-3
• 2007: "Whither the Walker Goes: Spatial Practices and Negative Poetics in 1990s Chinese Urban Cinema,” anthologized in The Urban Generation: Chinese Cinema and Society at the Turn of the 21st Century, ed. Zhang Zhen (Duke University Press), 205-37 : ISBN 978-0-8223-4074-4
• 2007: (art catalogue) Re-Fabrication: Choi Yan-chi|Choi Yan-chi's 30 Years, the paths for interdisciplinarity in art (1975-2005)'', researched and edited for Para/Site Art Space's "Hongkong Artists in the 1980s" series : ISBN 988-98963-2-X
• 2004: (art book) Crypto-glyph: Dialogues in Many Tongues in the Hidden Crevices of an Open City with Theresa Junko Mikuriya, a 288-page documentation of their 8 rounds of dialogues via photography and text : ISBN 988-97391-1-9
• 2001: “Film and Enigmatization: Nostalgia, Nonsense, and Remembering,” anthologized in At Full Speed: Hong Kong Cinema in a Borderless World, ed. Esther C.M. Yau, (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2001), 231-50 : ISBN 0-8166-3235-9
• 2000: "HK Cinema in the 1930s: Docility, Social Hygiene, Pleasure-seeking & the Consolidation of the Film Industry," in Screening the Past (an electronic refereed journal on film and media arts published in Australia), issue #11. Officially Upload on 1 November 2000.

Selected artworks

Installations

• PUSH: the Quest for a Voice, In Search of a Body^[3] (「推」: 探索嗓音、搜尋身體), an interactive, digital installation in collaboration with Theresa Mikuriya, Official Selection for the Hong Kong Art Biennial Exhibition, November 20, 2003 to March 1, 2004.
• One Take (2 versions); a looping video (wall projection), at "Social Club," Para Site, Hong Kong, 20 Feb to 10 Mar 2002; and the "Fourth State Of Water", an installation exhibition on water, CoCA (Center of Contemporary Art), Turen, Poland, 2 March to 29 April 2012.
• 1906-1989-2012/ Guangzhou-Hong Kong-Shanghai-Anji (1906-1989-2012:廣州-香港-上海 -安吉)"^[4][5] 2012, a mixed media installation (混合媒體裝置), commissioned for the themed exhibition, in theme section “Revisit” curated by Qiu Zhijie at the 9th 2012 Shanghai Biennale, Oct 2, 2012 to Mar 31, 2013.^[6]
• Door Games, Window Frames: Near Drama(景框戲門), an automated multi-window projection using found images from Hong Kong Cantonese melodrama from the 1960s, Official Selection of the Hong Kong Contemporary Art Award 2012 (exhibited 4 October 2013 to 5 January 2014); selected art work at the 16th Generative Art Conference, 9–12 December 2013, Milan.^[7]

Video art / experimental moving image / experimental documentary

Lai's works are collected at the Asia Art Archive:^[8][9]

Published works at film/video festivals:

Door Games Window Frames: Near Drama (景框戲門) (single-channel video version); 2012, 11m 30s / screened at 2 festivals, in South Korea^[10] and the Netherlands^[11]

Voices Seen, Images Heard (看得見的聲音，聽得見的形象); 2009, 28m / screened at 13 festivals^{[12][13][14][15][16][17]} and art events around the world. This work is also anthologized and viewable with commentary in ASPECT, Chronicle of New Media Art.

Non-place, Other Space (隱城･懸浮半空); 2009, 3m 35s / screened at 7 festivals^[18][19][20] and 9 art spaces^[21] around the world

Shanghai Saga: Other Skies, Other Lands (上海歌：另尋天地); 2009, 32m / in International Competition at 55th International Short Film Festival Oberhausen 2009^[22]

Trespassing World Cities (搖擺過路人); 2005, 28m / Juror's selection for Women Make Waves Film Festival 2006^[23]

Door Game (戲門); 2005, 26m / screened 4 festivals in Asia^[23]

I Told Them My Camera Was On (六度分離∶準備好未？); 2004/5, 24m / screened 3 festivals in Europe, including the 51st International Short Film Festival Oberhausen 2005 and the Rencontres Internationales Paris Berlin Madrid 2005

Citations

Citations at Asia Art Archive

Art Basel Hong Kong 2013: "Home Grown Talents" (Kick-off conversation)

"The Document," event at Art Basel Hong Kong curated by the Asia Art Archive: a dialogue between Abbas Kierostami, Linda Lai, Shooshie Sulaiman and Hammad Nasar

Presentation by curator Qiu Zhijie on the 9th Shanghai Biennale 2012, "Asia Art Archive in America"

《台灣與香港新媒體藝術的契機 I：知識主體、感知與實踐》[opportunities of new media art in Taiwan and Hong Kong: the subject of knowledge, perception, cognition and practice] / 採訪：貢幼穎／整理：貢幼穎，藝外+數位荒原, interview with Linda Lai, posted in Chinese on NO MAN'S LAND (荒原), 29 February 2012.

ASPECT (the Chronicle of New Media Art) volume 18 (fall, 2011), "Export China"; commentary by Kimburley Choi.

References