ART
X
Perceptual
Psychology
TALKING
HEADS
01
藝術 X 感知心理學:共感想像
Art X Perceptual Psychology: Cross Modal Imagination

Date and Time
24 May 2020 (SUN) 1100-1230
24 May 2020 (SUN) 1140-1445

Venue
Hong Kong Arts Centre

Talk Enquires
2582 0200

Admission
Free, first-come-first-served basis.


Overview

We habitually categorize our perception of the world along the limits of our senses – sight, sound, tactile, and so forth, but these boundaries behave more like permeable fault lines. The Chinese language is filled to the bream with examples of cross-modal thinking – fine porcelain’s surface is ‘warm and moist’, a mind that is high-spirited is likened to the tactile sensation of a ‘filled-and-full’ stomach – examples are numerous. Hong Kong artist Samson Young will initiate this edition of “Cultural Masseur: Talking Heads” with the programme “Art X Perceptual Psychology: Cross-modal Imagination”. With a series of events which consists of an artist presentation, an experimental showcase and a chill-chat salon, you will be led into the important pathway to open-mindedness through cross-modal thinking.

Experiential Showcase: Sound Sketching Session | Tamar Park | 24 (SUN) May 2020 11:00-12:30

In this session at Tamar Park, participants will open up the boundaries among their different senses. Various sounds from the field will turn into sketches through paints and brushes.

Artist Presentation | UB/F, Louis Koo Cinema, Hong Kong Arts Centre | 24 (SUN) May 2020 14:00-14:45

Samson Young will talk about how ‘cross-modal thinking’ could break through the invisible walls among different senses through the work of art.

Chill-chat Salon

Samson Young will initiate this follow-up discussion with Prof. Cheung Him, Chair Professor of Cognition at The Education University of Hong Kong, and Hong Kong writer Hon Lai Chu. The conversation will further lead into areas such as perceptual psychology, humanities and philosophy. Edited video recording will be published to the website of Cultural Masseur for public viewing.

Artist
Samson Young

Originally trained in music composition, Samson Young’s creative outputs now manifest in a variety of media and across disciplinary divide. His works are seen and heard in galleries, museums, concert halls and performance spaces.

In 2007, he became the recipient of the inaugural Bloomberg Emerging Artist Award with his audio-visual project The Happiest Hour, which marked his entry into the world of art outside of the concert hall. Other honors include an honorary mention at the digital music and sound art category of Prix Ars Electronica – one of the most important awards in the field of electronic art; a Jury Selection award at the 15th Japan Media Art Festival; and the New York Society for New Music Brian M. Israel Prize. CNN’s global portal identified him as one of the “Top 20 People to Watch in Hong Kong” and in 2013 he was named “Best Artist of the Year” in the Media Art category by the Hong Kong Arts Development Council.

Young received a Ph.D in composition at Princeton University under the supervision of computer music pioneer Paul Lansky. In 2007, he founded the experimental sound advocacy organization Contemporary Musiking. He was Hong Kong Sinfonietta’s Artist Associate in the 2008 – 2009 concert season, an organization for whom he’d developed a number of multimedia and music theatre productions. He is currently an assistant professor at the School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong.

Respondent
Prof. Cheung Him

Professor Cheung Him is the Chair Professor of Cognition and Associate Head of the Department of Psychology at The Education University of Hong Kong (EdUHK). Prior to joining EdUHK, Professor Cheung was a professor of psychology at The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK). He also worked at the University of Otago, New Zealand, and the City University of Hong Kong. Professor Cheung obtained his bachelor’s degree in social science from CUHK, and master’s and doctoral degrees from the University of Kansas, the United States.Professor Cheung has been doing research on children’s short-term memory, with a language focus, examining its relation to reading performance, language ability, and cross-cultural differences among children reading Chinese and reading the alphabet. In recent years, he has extended his research to the recognition of musical pitch by infants and cross-cultural differences in the mind development of young children.

Respondent
Hon Lai Chu

Hon Lai Chu is a Hong Kong author of several novels, including Empty Face 《空臉》, Body-sewing 《縫身》, as well as The Border of Centrifugation《離心帶》. She won the Hong Kong Biennial Award for Chinese Literature for fiction with her anthology of short stories Silent Creature in 2004. Her 2006 novel Kite Family, first published as a novella, won the New Writer’s Novella first prize from Taiwan’s Unitas Literary Association; the extended version was one of the 2008’s Books of the Year by China Times in Taiwan. Kite Family, and her latest work, Grey Flower, were selected as Top 10 Chinese Novels World-wide for the year 2008 and 2009 respectively.