New Media: The Art of Sensory Codification in the Digital Age

May 4, 2022

“We use technology not for its essence, but because of its unavoidable and ubiquitous presence in our global world. It is no longer a tool or something separate from us; it is our second skin.”

– Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980)

Media art first revealed its boundless potential during the Fluxus movement (ca. 1960). Today, as the fusion of art and technology becomes mainstream, creators employing technology in their art continue to focus on activating and responding to the senses. With the increasing portability of technology, artists are able to concentrate more deeply on conceptual development, encoding sensory experiences further. This allows the visual to be heard, the auditory to be touched, and transforms the imaginings of Gilles Deleuze into reality. By combining technology and art, new media design and art lead audiences away from unidirectional experiences into multisensory streams of information, reshaping perception and experience.

This lecture features Hong Kong new media artist Keith Lam and Hung Yu-Tang, director of White Radiation Images. Through numerous case studies, they explore how human sensory abilities can be extended, expanded, and activated through media. The discussion also delves into how technology, amidst the surge of new media, assists in capturing the abstract and examines the relationship between human perception and the frameworks of media.

Planned and co-organized by pong ding︎︎︎.
Published: May 4, 2022. Last Updated: December 27, 2024.