Oculus power! Arts and technology’s mediation of postcolonial neoliberal nationalism in Hong Kong

Abstract

In the Hong Kong Chief Executive’s 2020 Policy Address, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) Government implemented strategies to integrate arts and technology as a new trend in cultural development. With the co-existence of a governmental initiative in ‘arts and technology’ (‘arts tech’) development and the rapid advancement of new technologies, it is frequently seen that new technologies (e.g., virtual reality [VR] and augmented reality) have been widely adopted in interactive media art productions in Hong Kong. Drawing on ethnographic research on a commercial virtual event, and a VR theatre performance produced by a Hong Kong cross-media creative studio, this study unveils discrepancies existing between government officials, commercial marketers, and art creators, ranging from objectives to practices in applying technologies to virtual art production. The juxtaposition of a market-driven commercial virtual campaign and the Chinese nationalist agenda embodied in the government-funded arts tech project reflects how the socio-historical background and changing political situation in Hong Kong extends its postcolonial neoliberal nationalism (PNN) to the arts tech arena. The contribution of this paper is two-fold: first, by adopting ‘China as method’ as epistemological analysis, the mediation of PNN by arts tech explains a ‘southbound imaginary’ in Hong Kong’s arts and cultural practices through a changing relationship between Hong Kong and mainland China. Second, in contrast to the current scholarship focusing on human governance in the formation of neoliberal nationalism, this paper underscores the ‘power’ of techno-cultural material in mediating the neoliberal nationalism of Hong Kong, after its reversion to China, through arts tech development.

Pluralising China as method: Between exceptionalism and universalism

“…Drawing on participant observation at a Hong Kong creative studio and semi-structured interviews with its employees, the final article, by Shum (2023), utilises Latour's actor-network theory (ANT) and Gell's notion of art nexus to further conceptualise how postcolonial neoliberal nationalism (PNN) is reflected through the case of Hong Kong's art technology as well as art and cultural practices. Drawing on the distinct relationshipwith regard to art technology development in particularbetween Hong Kong and mainland China, Shum (2023) conceptualises the state of Hong Kong's arts and cultural practices as being connected to a 'southbound imaginary', which is further characterised by the penetration of nationalistic practices and agendas into Hong Kong's art scene.…”

“…Drawing on participant observation at a Hong Kong creative studio and semi-structured interviews with its employees, the final article, by Shum (2023), utilises Latour's actor-network theory (ANT) and Gell's notion of art nexus to further conceptualise how postcolonial neoliberal nationalism (PNN) is reflected through the case of Hong Kong's art technology as well as art and cultural practices. Drawing on the distinct relationshipwith regard to art technology development in particularbetween Hong Kong and mainland China, Shum (2023) conceptualises the state of Hong Kong's arts and cultural practices as being connected to a 'southbound imaginary', which is further characterised by the penetration of nationalistic practices and agendas into Hong Kong's art scene. The configuration and development of Hong Kong's art and cultural practices differ from those of other forms of Hong Kong popular culture, such as film, music, and television, where workers are relatively constrained by a 'northbound imaginary', one where Hong Kong cultural practitioners need to work within the logic and trends of the profit-making mainland market in such creative sectors.…”