Looking at a new case of contemporaneity through the use of an Actor-based Archive

A brief methodological proposal
by Jims Lam

In the 21st century, there is an emergence of creative intensity that is flowing in an unexplored territory in between two well defined cultures – geographically representing the west and the east. This energy, an impulse, is currently and simultaneously situated in a time and place that is both inside and outside the realm of the ‘contemporary (art)’. However, a systematic explanation has yet to be worked out to account for the creation and operation of this new articulation in the field of visual culture or in the art world.

The concept of contemporaneity as the philosopher Giorgio Agamben brings forth, is a state of untimeliness, in which it “is that relationship with time that adheres to it through a disjunction and an anachronism.”¹ For this archive, the term contemporaneity is understood as a cluster of perspectives that is deemed most important and productive of a particular time which is dynamic. Thus, this online archive is trying to foster a methodological proposal to imagine a new case of contemporaneity, an alternative way to understand our visual culture.

Briefly, this creative energy is subordinated to a broad artistic sphere that began to take shape when a new generation of younger Asian descendants in the west, also known as diaspora, have undergone continuous development, and of which their articulations of art and culture have accumulated over the past decades. It consists of various disciplines that self-consciously distinguish themselves from thematic art, mainstream academic art and traditional art (although also constantly interacting with these categories).

East Asian diaspora of different nations who are now producing at a rapid speed, are eager to be understood by others. This, because they often felt misrepresented or even underrepresented by the current social environment that they were born into. Generally speaking, there are two problematic ways to look at the creative projects that are created by these artists: 1) Traditional art histories defined by the nations and 2) A global perspective that oversimplified local angles of observation. Therefore, decentralising the global versus local dichotomy is a vital part of this new perspective of contemporaneity that this archive is actively pursuing. The traditional encyclopaedic approach that has been used by cultural institutions in the attempt to periodise contemporary art is inadequate. The scenarios that this network is trying to explore often carries multiply explanations. Hence, the actor-based archive is designed not to become a vault to encompass as much as possible, but rather it is a tool to resist closures and limitations. The curator, Hou Hanru once mentioned the ancient Roman forums as a combination of market and political forum, a prototype of a democratic society, as opposed to the Roman forums today that are a tourist hotspot or a token of consumerism.² With such an awareness in mind, this actor-based archive seeks to gather all kinds of topics that could continuously revitalize our present perspective to better understand contemporaneity and more importantly – to provide a capacious space that recognizes pluralistic definitions.

In this last paragraph and also as a point of departure, this archive would like to suggest a mode of thinking as an immediate response that can potentially contribute to a better understanding of our present time.

In my eyes, interactions and mutual influences between cultures are very important. ‘West’, ‘East’, ‘I’, ‘Other’ are not fixed concepts; they can shift. I was very interested in the West when I was in China. I considered it as something outside me and it provided a source for my imagination. On the contrary, I talk more about China now that I am in the West. This is probably because of the Western context.

Huang Yongping (Paris: 1993)

Being widely regarded as one of the most prominent figures during the Avant-garde movement in the 1980s, the artist Huang Yongping (b.1954-2019) had demonstrated to us that subjectivity are different modalities that could be swapped and interchanged in order to make the most value of arts. When applied in this actor-based archive, the conscious shifting of modalities implies a fluidity to the understanding of art as nexuses that is not limited to western and eastern perspectives, but can be made of different actors instead. This new case of contemporaneity consists of numerous convergence and diversity provided a challenging point of reference for audiences from all cultures. The exploration of how much people have to learn from each other is the focus of this intriguing network consisting of creative projects from both Western and Eastern actors.

Additional statement about the concept of the actor-based network

Inspired by the actor-network theories that are proclaimed by the philosopher, anthropologist and sociologist Bruno Latour. The design model of this archive identifies actors and emphasises how they are involved in shaping various creative outcomes. Actors can be defined as entities which serve as intermediaries between other actors. Actors are not limited to humans, but may include technology, history and cultural organisations. The act of creating a network of actors, henceforth, does not distinguish between human and material, and sometimes actors may be better referred as actants.

The primary principles of the actor-based archive are as follow:

Providing space to nurture a new perspective on art and culture
Decentralizing the dichotomy of ‘Global vs Local’
Documenting new cultural happenings among the diaspora communities
To promote a dynamic understanding of co-existence and discursive commitments

1. Agamben, Giorgio. “What Is an Apparatus?” And Other Essays. Meridian, Crossing Aesthetics. Stanford, Calif: Stanford University Press, 2009.

2. Hsiao Hwei, Yu. “Why Do We Still Need Museums? An Interview with Hou Hanru, Artistic Director of MAXXI, National Museum of the 21st Century Arts, Rome.” Yishu Vol. 14, no. No. 2 (April 2015).