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Events·Programs
Gwangju Biennale Public Lecture Series ‘GB Talks’ kicks off
Monthly Gatherings_
GB Talks Vol 1. : Dark Tourism & Utopia by Hiroki Azuma and Alex Taek-Gwang Lee
Conference Hall, 3F Gwangju Biennale Foundation
Friday, September 1st, 2017, 4-7pm
The Gwangju Biennale Foundation runs a programme titled, ‘Monthly Gatherings’, which includes Artist Studio Visits and GB Talks as multidisciplinary platforms to stimulate sustainable and diverse communication between artists, curators, scholars, creatives and local residents.
The GB Talks begins on September 1st with lectures by Hiroki Azuma and Alex Taek-Gwang Lee on Dark Tourism & Utopia. Hiroki Azuma will talk about ‘Dark Tourism’ by explaining the ruins of formidable tragedies, such as Chernobyl(1986) and Fukushima(2011) and ruminating the growth-oriented history of mankind. Alex Taek-Gwang Lee will lecture on the theme of ‘Utopia’, criticizing the modern society soaked in global capitalism, further reaffirming the dark side of utopian visions and rethinking the meaning of the utopia.
Hiroki Azuma is a cultural critic, novelist and philosopher. He received his PhD from the University of Tokyo and taught as a professor at Waseda University. He is currently the president of the Genron publishing company. His publications include Otaku: Japan’s Database Animals (University of Minnesota Press, 2009), General Will 2.0: Rousseau, Freud, Google (Vertical, 2014) and many others in Japanese. He was awarded the 23rd Yukio Mishima Prize for his novel, Quantum Families.
Dr. Alex Taek-Gwang Lee is a cultural critic and a professor at Kyung Hee University in the Republic of Korea. He received his MA in philosophy from the University of Warwick and his PhD in Cultural Theory from the University of Sheffield. His publications include The Idea of Communism 3 with Slavoj Zizek, Theory after Althusserianism, Futurism, The Obscene Fantasy of Korean Culture and Deleuze as a Theatre of Philosophy.
Upcoming GB Talks
Lectures by Jae-seung Jeong, a professor at Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) and Goo-Yong Park, a professor of philosophy at Jeonnam University are scheduled to be held in 2017