Presenting: The Mind Cave
Much is known about Plato’s Cave as a prototype for cinematic and projective mediums. Less known outside Asia, however, is the Buddhist Shadow Cave of Central Asia in a region some called “Greek Asia.” Legend has it that Buddha, having subjugated a dragon there, leapt into a cave wall to become an image, thereby transforming the grotto into the Shadow Cave. The scenario was in fact an imaginary dramatization of Buddhist meditation. The grotto is thus a Mind Cave. Just as Plato’s Cave has inspired various cinematic stagings, so the Shadow Cave awaits 21st century scenographic imaginings in equal measure. Now, Harvard CAMLab’s Mind Cave projects aim to bring the Shadow Cave into the 21st century through innovative media designs. Professor Wang will introduce these CAMLab explorations.
Eugene Y. Wang is the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Professor of Asian Art in the Department of History of Art and Architecture at Harvard University. He is also a member of the standing committee of the Department of Theater, Dance, and Media, and the Committee on Inner Asian and Altaic Studies at Harvard. A Guggenheim Fellow (2005), he is the art history editor of the Encyclopedia of Buddhism (Macmillan, 2004). His extensive publications range from early Chinese art and archeology to contemporary art. Among his research interests is Buddhist ways of worldmaking, a central issue underlying his book, Shaping the Lotus Sutra: Buddhist Visual Culture in Medieval China (2005), which received an academic award from Japan.
He has served on advisory boards and review committees for the Center for Advanced Study in Visual Art, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, Getty Foundation, Mellon Foundation, etc.
His research focuses on cognitive study of art. He is currently working on a history of luminance and the cognitive model of shadow cave throughout Chinese art history.
He is the founding director of the Harvard FAS CAMLab (Chinese Art Media Lab). The lab explores multimedia storytelling and creates immersive artistic experience, turning humanistic research into creative sensorial media practice.
https://harvard.academia.edu/EugeneWang
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