Media Shifts
Human Artistic Competences in Creative Industries in the Time of AI: Takumi Standards’ Possibilities and Limitations View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Badar Almamari, Mohammed Alamri
Technological tools related to artificial intelligence (AI) have a strong impact on the changes of practices in creative industries. With the development of creative technologies, the quality of AI-generated art objects has significantly increased. This is relevant in the AI art field, where AI generates art objects that is appreciated. The AI-generated artworks technologies in the visual creative industries, with accurate outcome, provides a new thinking and new aesthetic existence for the development of the visual creative industries in recent years. Because innovation and technological development are at the core of the economic growth process and of the evolution of the industrial structure of countries, AI-generated creative products crushed the future of human handmade skills dramatically. So, the essential question currently is: Will human craft and handmade skills disappear as artificial intelligence reaches beyond our limits? An opposite point of view still believes in the existence of group of special craftsmen called Takumi (Japanese term), and the need of their skills standards to be as survivor group of handmade creators in creative industries. This research investigates the possibilities and limitations of Takumi craftsmen and their artistic competences in the era of AI.
Investigating Linguistic Dynamics in Hong Kong’s Media: A Sociolinguistic Approach to High and Low Culture
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Hin Yee Wong
This study focuses on the sociolinguistic underpinnings of Hong Kong's media, exploring the complex relationship between language use and the cultural delineation of high and low culture. In Hong Kong's diverse linguistic environment, where Cantonese, Mandarin, and English intersect, this research examines how these languages are used across various media forms to navigate cultural distinctions, thereby influencing societal perceptions and identities. By focusing specifically on language use within cinematic productions, television broadcasts, and digital social media content, the study aims to understand the mechanisms through which media articulates and reshapes cultural hierarchies. Using a combination of content analysis and discourse analysis, the research identifies and examines instances of language choice, code-switching, and linguistic framing within selected media texts. This approach allows for an in-depth look at how linguistic practices not only reflect but also actively construct cultural values and identities, highlighting the role of media as a key place for cultural negotiation. By pinpointing specific examples of how language serves to differentiate or blur the lines between high and low culture in media representations, the study sheds light on the broader sociolinguistic processes at play in Hong Kong’s complex cultural ecosystem. Initial findings suggest that linguistic stratification in media influences and challenges cultural legitimacy, with implications for understanding the changing nature of identity in a globalized urban context. This investigation contributes a nuanced perspective to the discourse on language, media, and culture, offering valuable insights for researchers and practitioners navigating the intersections of linguistics and the arts in society.
Reconstructing the Dialogue between Taiwan New Cinema and the “Post-New Cinema”: A Comparative Study on the Cinematic Arts of Ho Wi-ding’s “Terrorizers” (2021) and Edward Yang’s “Terrorizers” (1986)
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Ting-Ying Lin
In commemoration of the 40th anniversary of the world-renowned Taiwan New Cinema movement in 2022, extant scholarly efforts have predominantly centered on an exploration of cinematic realism as exemplified in the works of Hou Hsiao-hsien and his successors. However, the influential repercussions of Edward Yang, a prominent figure in the Taiwan New Cinema paradigm, and the modernist and postmodernist aesthetics, stylistic elements, and visual motifs characteristic of his works on the cinematic endeavors of the “Post-New Cinema” generation remain a scholarly gap. Consequently, an exploration of the multi-dimensional facets encompassing dialogue, interconnection, continuation, inheritance, and transformation within the realm of cinematic historiography, transitioning from the Taiwan New Cinema to “Post-New Cinema,” emerges as an imperative avenue for research. Hence, the research situates Ho Wi-ding’s cinematic tribute, Terrorizers (2021) dedicated to Edward Yang, as a case study for analysis and contextual dialogue with existing scholarship on “homage films”. Using theories of intertextuality, it focalizes on the cinematic arts between Ho Wi-ding’s Terrorizers (2021) and Edward Yang’s Terrorizers (1986). An exhaustive analytical lens, encompassing various aspects of cinematic arts including narrative motifs, visual composition, mise-en-scène, editing strategies, and the languages of cinematography, is employed to contribute substantively to the ongoing discourse on intertextuality within the ambit of contemporary Taiwan cinema. To conclude, the influential impact of Edward Yang’s cinematic aesthetics and stylistic legacies on the contemporary cinematic milieu in Taiwan, thereby inaugurating a nuanced dialogue between the epochs of Taiwan New Cinema and the “Post-New Cinema” generation regarding their cinematic arts.
