::fibreculture:: lecture: CITIES: FROM FLUX TO NOW

[Melinda Rackham]

Michael Yuen
who is producing the Dreamworlds : Australian Moving Image exhibition  
I am curating in Beijing  next month
is in Melbourne from 18 sept for 3 weeks.
Michael is interested in doing lectures to art and/or architecture  
students at rmit, vca or elsewhere.

If this fits into you course contact Michael directly. <michael.yuen at internode.on.net 
 >

cheers
Melinda


CITIES: FROM FLUX TO NOW

Recently, Michael Yuen has been touring Europe with his lecture series  
“Cities: from flux to now”. The lectures are concerned with  
reconsidering the city and breaking with contemporary city thinking.  
Michael lectures about new views on the city. He has a desire to go  
beyond our known positions on it, to confront its clichés and  
ultimately our inaction.

Against the backdrop of Asia’s mega cities Michael guides us through  
the complexities of the contemporary city. Within today’s cities of  
flux, we find rapidly changing social structures and built  
environments with no clear direction. And, in them, Michael tells us  
it is not enough to merely describe and document, but rather it is  
important to find tools for acting. Michael has given talks in Europe  
and China expressing his need for new hierarchies to emerge that focus  
on the contemporary use of the city. Dismantling urban theory from the  
last sixty years, he searches for new terms for the city in art,  
architecture, philosophy and city planning.

The current tour has included the Willem de Kooning Academie  
Rotterdam, Jan Matejko Academy Krakow, Warsaw Polytechnic, Bauhaus- 
Universität and Liszt School of Music Weimar, Whiteconcept Berlin,  
Love Vienna, C Space Beijing.

This is not the first time Michael has tackled the idea of cities –  
his works are often interventions into the city. In Follow, Michael  
paid fifty people to follow him for a day as he went about his usual  
activities walking through the city.

Michael Yuen is an Australian artist working across a range of mediums  
including sound, light and performance. Over the past few years  
Michael has divided his time equally between Australia and China.

His works have been selected for exhibitions and projects with Zendai  
Museum of Modern Art (Shanghai), Australian Centre for the Moving  
Image (Melbourne), Beijing Modern Dance Company, Hong Kong Shenzhen  
Biennale of Architecture, Adelaide Festival of Arts, SSamzie Space  
(Seoul), Beijing 798 Biennale, Freies Museum (Berlin), ArtBeijing and  
MODEM Centre of Contemporary Art (Hungry). He has served as a peer for  
InterArts and Music at the Australia Council and received Ruby  
Litchfield and AsiaLink awards.

Michael is also the co-founder of the Donkey Institute of Contemporary  
Art, an art space travelling Beijing's streets on the back of a donkey.

www.michaelyuen.com.au
www.donkeyinstitute.net