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X-WR-CALNAME:Walls-as-Media: Between Cheng (Wall-City) and Ping (Wall-Scree
 n)
X-WR-TIMEZONE:Eastern Time (US & Canada)
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260605T230326Z
UID:tag:localist.com\,2008:EventInstance_49100751029160
DTSTART:20250417T204500Z
DTEND:20250417T221500Z
DESCRIPTION:East Asia Program Lecture Series presents “Walls-as-Media: Be
 tween Cheng (Wall-City) and Ping (Wall-Screen)"\n\nSpeaker: Jinying Li\, A
 ssistant Professor\, Modern Culture and Media\, Brown University\n\nDescri
 ption:\n\nAs global networks promise boundless access\, we are facing incr
 easing layers of walls. From computer firewalls to China’s Great Firewal
 l\, from the Facebook wall to the virtual walls in virtual reality\, digit
 al media\, in fact\, are largely walled. The existence of these walls shat
 ters the myth of what Manuel Castells has famously called “the space of 
 flows\,” and highlights the significant functions of walled enclosure in
  managing\, controlling\, and mediating information\, knowledge\, and expe
 rience. It problematizes the enlightenment ideals of transparency\, depth\
 , openness\, and universal knowledge\, and underlines walled mediation as 
 the fundamental condition of modern experience. My talk proposes a theoret
 ical framework to explore the meanings and functions of the wall in media 
 history by studying its archeological formation as a media device as well 
 as its genealogical development as a discursive metaphor. I first examine 
 the media archeology of the wall as a material artifact\, focusing on chen
 g 城 (wall-city) and ping 屏 (wall-screen) as two archetypal walls in Ch
 inese media history. In their various renditions and configurations\, both
  cheng and ping define the wall as an asymmetrical and contradictory struc
 ture\, which is simultaneously a blocking barrier that encloses a territor
 y and community as well as a displaying surface that expresses feelings an
 d powers. This duality between a barrier and a surface further informs the
  genealogy of wall as a discursive formation\, which I examine by comparin
 g the development of the wall as a structure metaphor with that of the win
 dow metaphor in the competing conceptions of screen as a media system. I a
 rgue that the wall presents an alternative genealogy from the window\, shi
 fting from optical apparatus to spatial devices. This conceptual shift fro
 m the window to the wall\, from optical projection to spatial construction
 \, is also a move away from the perspective-centric conceptualization of m
 odern media\, pointing toward surface-oriented media configurations of env
 ironmental management\, mobility control and socio-political demarcation. 
 \n\nSpeaker Bio: Jinying Li is Assistant Professor of Modern Culture and M
 edia at Brown University where she teaches media theory\, animation\, and 
 digital culture in East Asia. She co-edited two special issues on Chinese 
 animation for the Journal of Chinese Cinemas\, and a special issue on regi
 onal platforms for Asiascape: Digital Asia. Her first book\, Anime’s Kno
 wledge Cultures (University of Minnesota Press\, 2024)\, explores the conn
 ection between the anime boom and global geekdom. She is currently competi
 ng her second book project\, Walled Media and Mediating Walls. Jinying is 
 also a filmmaker and has worked on animations\, feature films\, and docume
 ntaries. Two documentary TV series that she produced were broadcasted nati
 onwide in China through Shanghai Media Group (SMG). She is one of the co-w
 riters of animated feature film Big Fish and Begonia (Dayu Haitang\, 2016)
 . She also produced an experimental VR documentary 47km (2017) in collabor
 ation with Chinese director Zhang Mengqi at Beijing Film Academy.\n\nAbout
  East Asia Program\n\nAs Cornell’s hub for research\, teaching\, and eng
 agement with East Asia\, the East Asia Program (EAP) serves as a forum for
  the interdisciplinary study of historical and contemporary East Asia. The
  program draws its membership of over 45 core faculty and numerous affilia
 ted faculty\, graduate\, and undergraduate students from eight of Cornell
 ’s 12 schools and colleges.
GEO:42.449047;-76.483597
LOCATION:Goldwin Smith Hall\, Room 64\, Kaufman Auditorium
SUMMARY:Walls-as-Media: Between Cheng (Wall-City) and Ping (Wall-Screen)
URL;VALUE=URI:https://events.cornell.edu/event/walls-as-media-between-cheng
 -wall-city-and-ping-wall-screen
CATEGORIES:Lecture
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