Event overview
Shanzhai (noun, adj): Counterfeit consumer goods, including imitation, parody and trademark infringing brands or electronics.
A panel discussion, part of Shanzhai Archeology, an ongoing art and research project at Watermans Art Centre.
Electronic devices possess their own trajectory. The production of digital technologies, from raw materials to information machines, take place in various places and cycles around the planet. On their back, the “Made in China” tag stands as a crucial piece of a mostly unwritten story.
During the last decades, the region of the Pearl River Delta in Southern China has been home to the largest production and assembling of technologies that has ever taken place in the history of mankind. At its forefront, the city of Shenzhen has become a new global center for technology, with many of the biggest tech companies in the world today.
The legendary speed of Shenzhen’s urban and industrial development has led to the appearance of entirely new technological phenomena with all their drawbacks, from the confidential development of weird shanzhai phones to the biggest shipment of Foxconn products all over the world. This discussion panel will be an occasion to look back at the many sides of this critical zone.
The introductory lecture presents an overview of the historical transformation of Shenzhen, from the post-cultural revolution political reforms in China to the latest generations of tech startups. Clément Renaud speculates on the global implications of this site on the future of technology. Disnovation introduce the Shanzhai Archeology research, together with a collection of smartphones of unique appearance and features made in Shenzhen. Finally, Liam Young shows an animated skyline of the near future which imagines a hyper dense urban region built entirely around the economies of the internet shopping giant.
Panellists
- An Xiao Mina is an American artist, designer, writer and technologist.
- Disnovation is a group working at the crossroads between contemporary art, research and hacking.
- Nicolas Maigret is a curator and teacher who exposes the internal workings of media, by developing sensory and immersive audio visual experiences.
- Maria Roszkowska is a Polish graphic designer based in Paris. She has been associate researcher at EnsadLab Paris.
- Irini Papadimitriou is Head of New Media Arts Development at Watermans, an arts organisation supporting artists working with technology.
- Clément Renaud is a French researcher, artist and writer specialized in innovation in China, social network analysis and data visualization.
- Liam Young is a speculative architect who operates in the spaces between design, fiction and futures.
Dates & times
| Date | Time | Add to calendar |
|---|---|---|
| 15 May 2018 | 6:00pm - 9:00pm |
Accessibility
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