08-12-21
Today is tomorrow’s. But, today is also the tomorrow of yesterday. Time is a warm blanket. It can wrap you up and you can feel the warmth only when you are willing to feel the togetherness of yesterday, today and tomorrow, and most importantly, learn to embrace the beauties and wisdom that the past has left for us today.
If you hear someone said “I hate old stuff!”, he or she must be the spoiled brat type who would not understand a damn thing about art, culture or the aesthetics of life and regrettably, respect outside one’s selfness.
The international new media artist Hung Keung(洪強), who is also the Associate Professor of The Education University of Hong Kong, has buried himself into the creativity of film, video and different forms of media art since 1995. He continues the expansion of human interactions artistically with moving digital images through computer and other modern technologies. He loves the dynamic yet contrasting dialogue between viewers with time and space, especially those inspired by the old Chinese literature, art and philosophy.
His famous works often involve projections in which Chinese calligraphies and drawings crawl abstractly on the wall.
Pole vaulting, also known as pole jumping, is a track and field event in which an athlete uses a long and flexible pole, made from bamboo in the old days or fiberglass nowadays, as a support and aid him to jump over a bar, the higher, the better. Hung Keung prided himself, “‘Pole vaulting’ is my philosophy of art and life!”
Hung Keung said, “I came from a very artistic family. My father and mother were well-educated Indonesian Chinese living in China in the 1950s. Both were art teachers but painters in their own right. I was born in China. When I was 3 in 1973, my parents took my sister and me to Hong Kong to start a new chapter in life. None of us could speak Cantonese. As their qualifications were not recognized locally, they were forced to become humble grassroots and take up dogsbody jobs in factories to make a living. I was a hyperactive child who never stopped rushing around. My mother taught me old Chinese art, literature and calligraphy in order to tame my temper. My good father died when I was 11. I drew cartoons and illustrations for newspapers in order to pay my school fees or buy lunch which was often a luxury. For my struggling years when I was in college, I was quick to borrow from teachers, classmates and friends but slow to pay them back. They all forgave me because I was often starved for food and almost could not make it through another day.”
I exclaimed, “Sorry about your poverty!” He closed his eyes, “Thank God! I did not die. On the contrary, I became stronger. Poverty was like the pole for my jumping in life. Those who don’t suffer will never jump. Those who don’t jump will never fly. The pole of poverty helped me bravely clear the greatest height in my miserable days without knocking the bar of hardship to the ground!”
Hung Keung is an academic and artistic genius. He studied in The Hong Kong Polytechnic University(香港理工大學), then The Chinese University of Hong Kong(香港中文大學), then Central Saint Martins. He researched in Germany, Denmark, USA and finally obtained the doctoral degree in Zurich University of the Arts in year of 2014.
Hung sank into thought, “The second pole in my life, or rather my art career, is the vital learning from ancient history, literature, philosophy, art and culture. The highest form of human excellence is to question oneself and others. But, the present is really too limited to provide answers relevant to life or art. The future however is always unknown. We could turn to the past for truth and inspirations. The past is like my pole for jumping purposes. While our ancestors have been around for 6 million years, the human civilization, as we now know, is also more than 6,000 years old. The history of humanity is vast, rich and stimulating. This archaic reservoir is capable of supplying water to all parts that a man or an artist needs for responding to questions about life which ironically beg more questions for us to answer. My daily exercise as a scholar and artist is to look forward and then look backward, again and again, till I get some wiser answers!”
I supported what Hung said, “We cannot build a framework on which to base our life or society without knowing and understanding how things worked in the past. History does not only help our present but it also helps us determine what we should do now in order to shape the future.” Hung smiled, “What you just said about history also apply to the art world!”
It is an artist’s duty to depict the times in which we live. It is also his duty to tell us what the past held and grew into today. If history is of no significance or interest to an artist, he will never get a pole for the higher jump!
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