Can Art Save Hong Kong? A Case Study of Preserving Hong Kong Cinema as an Intangible Cultural Heritage

Can Art Save Hong Kong? A Case Study of Preserving Hong Kong Cinema as an Intangible Cultural Heritage

(Short paper)

Keywords: post-digital, augmented reality, Hong Kong cinema, intangible cultural heritage, local culture, ubiquitous technology

In media arts discourse, the term post-digital describes art practices in relation to digital technologies. However, its concerns are humans and cultures rather than the technologies themselves, and the emphasis is on the aesthetics inherited through audience participation in artworks. This research project introduces a postdigital strategy for the preservation of local cinema and, at the conjunction of ubiquitous post-digital technologies, arts and the humanities, seeks to foster a new public awareness of the issues at stake in the city’s most representative cultural industry. The aim of the project is to re-forge the severed link between citizens and the cinematic representation of their own living space in the postdigital era. It argues that in the years to come, Hong Kong’s public cultural institutions should be able to conserve the city’s technological edge while reaffirming its modern specificity; to create a renewed sense of its own identity; and ultimately to propose to the general public an innovative feature of heritage mediation.