Reflections based on Chenyan’s peer review

Many thanks to ChenYan for reviewing my portfolio and giving constructive comments.

1. I regret that the interactive part of the exhibition that I mentioned in week 8 was not presented perfectly, but was replaced with comments from the audience. This is because although I had prepared the material for the collage poem, I did not finish the interactive part of the collage poem before the exhibition started because I had spent most of the time setting up the artwork in the exhibition, so it was substituted, but I will learn from this and reflect on it and think about how to make the exhibition more interactive and composite in the future. In order to get more people’s attention.

2. In terms of curatorial theory, I mentioned in week two that “The curator can enter a virtual view of the world and the viewer may follow in the curator’s footsteps. This did give me some inspiration, but I think it may not be the basis for a theory that emphasises the emotional experience of the viewer. It was this statement that gave me some inspiration to build relationships between the artworks, to create connections from them and to give the viewer a complete experience of the exhibition. So my artworks are arranged in the order in which I exhibit them.

3. I am grateful to Chenyan for suggesting ideas on how to connect the artworks, which is a form I had not thought of before, and provided me with new ideas. In fact, I can follow Chenyan’s idea of displaying artworks in different sections according to their forms. Photographs and illustrations are static works and capture moments of love. Installation works and prints, as well as performance art, could be exhibited together. And interviews can be exhibited as the final part. I have to admit that Chenyan’s suggestion is a good one, and indeed the artwork could be displayed in a different way. Although I still stuck to my idea this time, I think Chenyan’s suggestion has provided me with multiple perspectives for my future work.

4. Finally, I would like to thank Chenyan for providing me with some information and examples.

Emotion and the Contemporary Museum

In this book, I mainly read the chapter on Exhibiting with Emotion. In the article, there are points related to the geography of emotion: firstly, the concretization of the mind allows the way the body engages with the world to influence the nature of cognition; secondly, the embedding, presence or support of the mind makes the act of cognition dependent on the structure of the world; thirdly, given that cognition is embedded, the mind effectively expands into the world without being bound by the body (Robbins & Aydede, 2009). This is the case, I think, when considering emotions. I think this also suggests that while considering emotion and mood, there is an equal need to consider both ways of embedding and extending, and how this can be integrated with other things.

Before considering the various ways in which a curator can create an emotional exhibition, the curator needs to thoroughly understand the context of the artwork and the site, and needs to know how to manage, care for and use the artwork. These will help the curator to curate successfully. The text mentions two main ways in which curators convey emotion, one being visual and the other being audio.Witcomb (2012) notes that visuals can be compelling, touching and didactic. It can be a tool for memory and a way of engaging with those whose histories are different from ours – challenging our perceptions of difference and our ability to empathise. Exhibitions that put visuals and sound together for emotional use have the potential to stimulate the imagination, connect with visitors’ lived experiences, evoke unconscious memories and engage a deeper level of attention than a text-based critical approach. Thus, the judicious use of visual and sound effects can better evoke an emotional response in the viewer.

Modern Love (or Love in the Age of Cold Intimacies) & “Data Dating”

Both examples show the use of digital technology in today’s age in an exhibition about love.

Modern Love (or Love in the Age of Cold Intimacies) explores how the digital sphere, the influence of technology giants and neoliberal practices have changed love and romantic relationships, and how they have influenced the way we interact with each other.

“Data Dating” exhibition seeks to explore new directions in modern romance: new forms of intimate communication, the commodification of love through online dating services and syndication apps, unprecedented dating and dating behaviour, the renegotiation of sexual identities, and the changing practices and taboos of pornography.

It made me wonder about modern society, where romance has become more and more tangible, with carefully wrapped gifts, bouquets of flowers, wanting to do something for you, candlelit dinners, walks together sometime. The more concrete these things become, the more I feel that true romance is fading away.