Keynote speakers

Michael Bach

 

Michael Bach was born in Berlin in 1950. He studied Physics, Psychology and Computer Science in Bochum and Freiburg. In 1981 he finished his PhD thesis “Interaction between neurons in the visual cortex based on recordings with a multi-microelectrode”, supervised by Prof. Burkhart Fischer and Prof. Jürgen Krüger. He became head of the Electrophysiological Laboratory in the Department of Ophthalmology, University of Freiburg, in 1983. He holds a habilitation and venia legendi for ‘Neurobiophysik’ and was appointed as Professor (APL) in 1998. In 1999 he was appointed “Akademischer Direktor” and became head of Section Visual Function / Electrophysiology at the University Eye Hospital, University of Freiburg. Since 2004 he chaired the PERG Standardisation Committee of the International Society for Clinical Electrophysiology of Vision (ISCEV). He published more than 200 peer-reviewed papers, 500 first-authored oral presentations / posters and 20 book chapters, as well as the website visual phenomena. 


Pedro Calapez

Pedro Calapez was born in Lisbon (1953) where he lives and works. He began taking part in exhibitions in the seventies and in 1982 had his first solo exhibition. He has exhibited his work individually in various galleries and museums, most notably Histórias de objectos, Casa de la Cittá, Roma, Carré des Arts, Paris and Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon (1991); Petit jardin et paysage, Salpêtriére Chapel, Paris (1993); Memória involuntária, Chiado Museum, Lisbon (1996); Campo de Sombras, Pilar i Joan Miró Foundation, Majorca (1997); Studiolo, INTERVAL-Raum fur Kunst & Kultur, Witten, Germany (1998); Madre Agua, MEIAC - Contemporary Art Museum, Badajoz and CAAC - Andalucia Contemporary Art Centre (2002); Selected works 1992-2004, Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon (2004); piso zero, CGAC - Galicia Contemporary Art Centre, Santiago de Compostela (2005); Lugares de pintura, CAB - Caja Burgos Art Centre, Burgos.

Most outstanding among the various collective exhibitions in which he has taken part are the biennials of Venice (1986) and S.Paulo (1987 and 1991) and the exhibitions: 10 Contemporâneos, Serralves Museum, OPorto (1992); Perspectives, Marne-La-Vallée Contemporary Art Centre (1994); The day after tomorrow, CCB - Belém Cultural Centre, Lisbon (1994); Ecos de la materia, MEIAC, Badajoz (1996); Tage Der Dunkelheit Und Des Lichts, Bonn Art Museum (1999); EDP.ARTE, Serralves Museum, OPorto (2001); “Del Zero al 2005. Insights on Portuguese art”, Marcelino Botín Foundation, Santander (2005); Beaufort Outside - Inside, Contemporary Art Triennial, PMMK Museum, Ostende (2006); “Mapas, cosmogonias e puntos de referencia”, CGAC-Centro Galego de Arte Contemporânea, Santiago de Compostela (2007). );“Corpo,Densidade e Limite”,MACE – Museu de Arte Contemporânea de Elvas / Colecção António Cachola (2009). “Serralves 2009 - The Collection”, Museu de Serralves, Porto.

Reinhold Görling

Reinhold Görling is a professor of media and cultural studies at the Heinrich-Heine-  University Düsseldorf. He was visiting professor at Leopold-Franzens-University Innsbruck and the University of California Irvine. He got his PhD from the University Hannover with a study on literature, photography and film during the Spanish Civil War (“Dinamita Cerebral”, 1986), and his Habilitation in Comparative Literature with a study on aesthetic aspects of intercultural processes (Heterotopia. Lektüren einer interkulturen Literaturwissenschaft, 1997). His other publications include Kulturelle Topografien (Ed., 2004), Geste. Bewegungen zwischen Film und Tanz (Ed., 2008), Die Verletzbarkeit des Menschen. Folter und die Politik der Affekte (Ed., 2011). He currently works at the intersection between media philosophy, psychoanalysis, and visual studies. 

Wang Tao

Tao Wang was born in Kunming, China in 1962.  He studied Chinese Language and Literature in the Yunnan Normal University (Kunming) and then Art Theory at the Graduate School of the Chinese Academy of Arts (Beijing) before coming to London in 1986.   In 1993, he obtained the PhD degree from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London with dissertation titled Colour Symbolism in Late Shang China, and in the same year was appointed as Lecturer and later Senior Lecturer in Chinese Archaeology at the Department of Art and Archaeology of SOAS. He now holds the position Reader in Chinese Archaeology and Heritage at the University College London.

He has published more than 50 academic papers and several monographs, including Ancient Chinese Bronzes in the Meiyintang Collections (2009),  Unpublished Chinese Wooden Slips in the British Library (2007, eds. with Frances Wood and Hu Pingsheng), A Selection of Inscribed Early Chinese Bronzes from Sotheby’s and Christie’s (2007, with Liu Yu),  A Complete Collection of Chinese Wooden and Bamboo Documents, vol. 20 (2005, ed. with Hu Pingsheng), Exploring China’s Past: New Discoveries and Studies in Chinese Art and Archaeology (1999, trans. and ed. with Roderick Whitfield),  Origins of the Wuxing Theory and  Modes of  Thought in Early China (1998, eds. with Sarah Allan, and Fan Yuzhou), Exploration into China (1995), and Dunhuang Manuscripts in British Collections (Non-Buddhist Scriptures) (1990-07, eds. with others). ). He has organized a number of conferences and workshops and is academic adviser and contributor to four TV documentaries on Chinese history and archaeology.