Peace Blog

On AI and the art of being human

8/11/2023

As we move further into this new AI-powered, augmented world, I think there’s one important fact we can all keep in mind:

That we humans are not machines.

We are not wired to hit 150% productivity levels at all times. We are wired to sleep deeply each night, to allow our mind to cleanse itself and regenerate and create space for creativity and innovation to flow in.

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On Building Artistic Community

11/18/2014

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I first met Mei at a dim sum restaurant in Portland, Maine.

She came dressed in a funky Tibetan wool hat and handed me a photograph of one of her artworks, Tao Seeker (below). I was struck by this work, its searching, its journeying.

It was October 2013 and Suzanne Fox and I had put on an event with the curator and translator Valerie Doran. A quiet legend, Valerie has worked alongside the likes of Johnson Chang Tsong-zung and played a seminal role in the emergence of the Chinese avant garde to the world in the early 90s. I had lured her up to this New England sea port to speak about 5,000 years of Chinese art history.

At this lunch event, Mei Selvage appeared, her eyes wide with inspiration, telling me that she was an artist based here in Portland. It was almost like we had generated the entire event for her - so intensely did she respond to the themes of the talk. The two of us exchanged phone numbers and met up again the following month.

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Letter to Hong Kong

9/29/2014

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For the past 48 hours, I have been tied to my Facebook and Twitter feeds. Like a drip, it has been feeding me with news and sounds and sights. I have been unable to leave it.

Perhaps it's because I am watching these mass scenes of civil disobedience in Hong Kong and want to be there. I grew up amid these streets - and I can't walk out the front door right now. I'm stuck in the US, so I need to read my way through this.

I've hung out with Hong Kong's punk rockers and artists and dancers and I've come to know its soul through my work as an arts writer there - one of ancient fishing village meets Bladerunner futurism. One of killer movie industries, 4am cha cha tengs, financial wizardry, and a resilient and utterly unique culture that has grown from its ancient Chinese roots despite all the crap that colonialism has thrown its way.

A city where in 1949 and the 1950s, artists and painters joined refugees from across China as they fled down from the threat of communism and into the welcoming coves of Hong Kong's islands. Because despite those British colonists being in charge, the city was nonetheless offering a place where people could free their minds. The New Ink painting movement was born, Lui Shou-kwan threw modernism and Zen insight into an ancient craft of ink on rice paper - precisely because of Hong Kong's freedoms.

Maybe I can't leave my Twitter feed because in 1989, I was a young student in Hong Kong. And I distinctly remember sitting on a sofa in our home in Pokfulam and watching the unfolding events on the TV in Beijing. That leaves a certain scar on one's psyche. When that event happened, Hong Kong was the only place in the whole of China where it was legal to go out on the street and bear witness. And the people went, in their hundreds of thousands.

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Snake Lessons

2/11/2013

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There is the ringing sound of possibility in the air. It's the same every Lunar New Year, whether I'm deep in the flower markets of Hong Kong or in the polar ice plains of Portland. The planet feels like it is entering a new phase. The new animal rises to meet us; a snake with a playful game.

I am told, via my friend Alison on Facebook and the person who took the photo above of a print-out from Man Mo Temple (click on it to read the marvelously wacky predictions), that this will be a "wonderful year" for the horse. You may also spot the interesting mention of my "lucky accessory" of a Kirin unicorn.

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Journey to the West

1/28/2013

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Something curious happened to me on my recent trip to Xi'An.

I had arranged to go this ancient city to meet with the heads of the Xi'An Academy of Fine Art. I was on a trip to help establish a partnership with Maine College of Art (MECA). I was also meeting Karen Smith, a legendary writer and art critic in Beijing who is the director of a new museum here in Xi'An. She helped to connect me to the art school and met me at the airport where we jumped into the academy's car.

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On AI and the art of being human

On Building Artistic Community

Letter to Hong Kong

Snake Lessons

Journey to the West

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