The following is an audio taken from Lu Jie's presentation and interview at ISEA2006.

This interview was conducted by Joel Slayton as keynote conversations at ISEA2006.

As Chair of ISEA2006 and ZeroOne in my introduction I stated that San Jose is a globalized city shaped by the complexities of Silicon Valley and cultural dynamic of California. For better or worse, San Jose is an environment shaped by constant reinventions of commerce, power and creativity. It is this reinvention that is both self-referencing and a model of perceived others. It is not is not distinct, but rather hybridized with many contested representations. And these representations necessitate an critical examination-internally and externally, not so as to validate any claim to uniqueness, but rather as a call to the responsibilities of being a global actor.

As the 10th largest city in the United States, San Jose is an important portal on the eastern edge of the Pacific region, which shares deep historical and cultural connections that range from Latin American, the South Pacific, Southeast Asia to Asia. It was our view that San Jose is one node on a complex and dynamically changing global stage. It was from that perspective that our prestigious Keynote speakers, globalization expert Saskia Sassen and internationally renown curator Lu Jie were invited. I am very pleased to present my interviews which followed their presentations.

Joel Slayton
Director CADRE Laboratory for New Media
Chair, ISEA2006/ZeroOne San Jose: A Global Festival of Art on the Edge

Lu Jie (born, in Fujian, China) holds a BFA from the China Academy of Arts in Hangzhou and an MA from the Creative Curating Program at Goldsmiths College, University of London. He has curated numerous contemporary art exhibitions internationally including the Chinese presentation at the 2005 Prague Biennale and the 2005 Yokohama Triennale. He is the founder and director of The Long March: A Walking Visual Display. Initiated in 2002, this curatorial project was conceived to take place along the route of Mao’s historic Long March, with exhibitions, performances, symposia and discussions taking place in public sites that were selected for their historical, political or cultural significance. The Long March is a multifaceted and complex art project in which the journeys through the realities of different social locations, contexts, and dimensions are part of a process of artistic experience and creation. The long March acts not only as an art project but as a ‘transmediator,’ a form of capital which offers a platform, context, and professional service for the realization and display of new media works, as well as a ‘glocalely’ situated ‘social’ as a new media. Thus far, artworks from The Long March: A Walking Visual Display have been exhibited in National Museum of Contemporary Art, Lyon, 2004 Shanghai Biennale, 2004 Taipei Biennale, the 2005 Yokohama Triennale, Vancouver Art Gallery and the next Asia Pacific Triennale.

Lu Jie organized the first international curatorial symposium Curating in Chinese Context, in Zunyi, China, 2002, and has contributed to art conferences and seminars in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan, Australia, and throughout Europe and North America. Lu Jie is a Guest Researcher at the Research Center of Display Culture, China Academy of Art, Hagzhou, China, and is on the Editorial Board of the Yishu – Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art. He was a participant at the 19th Transmediale festival (transmedial.06.)