Upcoming online Workshop – “Wired China: Digital Media and Online Culture”

27-28th Nov 2020
Workshop held on Zoom
University of Zurich, Switzerland

Digital technologies have in the last decade profoundly changed China’s cultural landscape. Messaging apps such as WeChat and Chinese-language potcasts have become important platforms for critical debate, whilst the rising popularity of online platforms for fiction writing, video sharing, shopping, movie ratings and gaming reflect new practices of media consumption and reception. Web-based cultural activities do not only take place in the shadows of a repressive state but also reflect profound social and cultural transformations, technological developments as well as innovative engagements with traditional aesthetics. Today, a wide range of recreational, commercial and cultural activities such as online dating or virtual museum visits are continuously reshaping our understanding of cyberspace and its social implications. These developments are likely to undergo further acceleration during the Covid-19 crisis, as new forms of digital labor and wired sociality are exacerbating posthumanist concerns about technology’s impact on our experience of everyday life – and thereby also renewing the importance of cultural forms and textual practices that help us make sense of the complexities and contradictions of our technocultural age. Adopting a wide-angled approach towards the notion of “Wired China,” this workshop aims to explore current developments in Chinese-language digital culture, its social and political implications as well as the entanglements of cyberspace and digital technologies with Chinese history and aesthetic theory.

The workshop will be held on Zoom. To register, please contact: helen.hess@aoi.uzh.ch
The detailed program can be found on the workshop website:
https://dlf.uzh.ch/sites/wiredchina/programme/