Speaker

Li Weiyi

Responder

Jiang Zhuyun

Host

Liu Tian

Introduction

I would like to take this opportunity to discuss with you a question: What knowledge is born from within the practice of art? We often witness a heavily tilted conceptual balance, that is, external theory brought into art, or the converse, when art is unable to contribute meaningfully to the world of knowledge. We borrow  from fields with richer theories and hastily attach them to art. Art thus becomes a kind of space for the emotional rehearsal of external knowledge. Why is it so easy to appropriate theory in the service of of art? Because, of course, it has a lot to offer the artists. ‘In addition to caution, there’s a sense of full confidence’ (Robin Evans): art based on theory seems to justify itself. But if confidence needs to be obtained from such external sources  if we’re so dependent on philosophy, science, and sociology, this only shows that our creativity is deficient and restricted. I often think of the late Robin Evans’s discussion of architectural theory: ‘we seek theories from these highly developed regions, only to find that architecture has become a dependent subdiscipline. Why can’t we derive architectural theory from thinking about architecture?’ In another essay on architectural drawing, he wrote: ‘I think it’s possible to write a history of Western architecture that pays little attention to style or meaning. Instead, we can focus on the what people have paid attention to, what they’ve done and how.’ Over the years, my work has revolved around tools, methods, and today’s rapidly changing modes of knowledge mapping, trying to explore how  humans understand and create the world through their use of technology. I believe it is these methods and tools that tell us who we are and what we’re able to build. They also connect the work of each generation of artists together and connect the work of artists to the outside world. Instead of approaching art from a sociological or philosophical point of view, let us consider the words of the art historian Fousillon: ‘No amount of concentration on the study of a perfectly consistent social environment and its interlocking situation can provide us with a design for the tower of the cathedral of Lyon.’