Buddhism, Technology and the Arts: A Grammatology of Buddhism

In this lecture I will attempt to construct a transcultural, transmedial and transdisciplinary problematics that will focus on some of the various ways in which Buddhism, technology and the arts are linked in a context of the Asian tradition, and the Korean tradition in particular.

Firstly, this work will provide a global atlas of Buddhism from the point of view of dissemination, capturing its anthropological and semiotic features and its civilisational impacts. Secondly, I will focus on the case of Korean Buddhism, emphasising its cultural and spiritual links with technology and the arts. To demonstrate or reveal these deep relationships, as historical evidence, I will take three major cases from the history of reproductive and writing technology: the Korean Tripitaka, Jikji (the first metal printing in the world, long before Gutenberg) and the invention of Korean writing. Thirdly, to show the historical continuity of the structural links of proximity between Buddhism, technology and the arts, I will endeavour to (re)interpret the significance of the works of Paik Nam Jun, TV Buddha and other digital works in a modern context in the digital and artificial intelligence era.

To define these relationships between Buddhism, technology and the arts in an Asian context, I propose as an epistemology and transdisciplinary method the grammatology of Buddhism in a Derridean and broadened sense with a transhistorical and transcultural aim.

SUNG DO KIM | Korea University

Cycle of Seminars: Conservation and Transformation in Ethics and Religion

Scientific coordination: Massimo Leone, Director FBK-ISR

Speakers

• Sung Do Kim - Guest Speaker

  Korea University

  Professor of Linguistic Theories, Semiotics and Visual Studies at Korea University, Ph.D. in University of Paris 10, in general linguistics and semiotics. Founder & President of the ASIA (Asian Semiotics International Association). Past Vice-President of the IASS (2024-2024). Visiting Professor at Oxford University, Harvard University, Cambridge University, CNRS & University of Paris. Actually Visiting Professor at the Pontifical Gregorian University. Senior Fulbright Fellow, LG Yeon-am Senior Fellow, POSCO Asian Fellow, Bourse du ministere des affaires etrangeres francaises pour le sejour de recherche, etc. Prix du Mouton d’Or attributed by Semiotica. Translator of the works of Derrida, Eco, Greimas, Peirce, Saussure. Publication: Essais de grammatologie comparee (2024), 20 books in Korean in the domain of Saussurean Studies, Semiotics, Urban Anthropology, Intermediality, etc. More than 100 articles published in domestic and international journals such as Cahiers F. de Saussur.

Registration

Registration to this event is mandatory.

The event will be held in English.

The presentation will take place in presence in the Aula Piccola FBK while places are available and online.

The Speaker will join online.

Registration is compulsory by 14 March 2025 at 12 noon in order to organise the connection.

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