Event

Ten Thousand Things: Cross-morphing and Transmattering

Date: April 13, 2025
Location: CITIC Bookstore - Sanlitun, Beijing

We inhabit an age of ontological reciprocity: as human agency merges with mechanical systems, and artificial entities acquire lifelike qualities. At the heart of this transformation lies a fundamental inquiry—how might we reconceive the concept of "matter" as an expansive continuum that binds human and machine through their shared processes of becoming?

This question echoes with the Chinese metaphysical notion of wanwu (万物)—"the ten thousand things"—which envisions reality not as discrete entities but as an unfolding tapestry of interdependent phenomena. Where the Latin res (root of "reality") implies static separability, wanwu evokes dynamic co-arising. This dialogue between the artist and the anthropologist examines the artist’s proposition that "reality and things are different names for the same event within an ongoing process." Such a perspective finds resonance across Eastern and Western intellectual traditions, which foreground dynamic interdependence and the notion of intra-action, emphasizing the entanglement of entities within continuous becoming.

Speakers

Yunchul Kim

Asking fundamental questions about “matter” and “matteriality,” he has demonstrated the possibilities of imagination and the creation of a reality beyond the realm of human experience, paying attention to its potential tendencies. He has won international awards, including the 2016 Collide International Award from CERN, Ars Electronica, and the VIDA 15.0 Third Prize. His works have been shown at the 798CUBE, Beijing; Korean Pavilion, 59th Venice Biennale, Venice; Yokohama Triennale; CCCB, Barcelona; Science Gallery Melbourne, Melbourne; FACT Liverpool; Frankfurt Museum of Art; and ZKM, Karlsluhe. He was a chief researcher of the research group Mattereality at the Korea Institute for Advanced Study, and a member of the art and science project group Fluid Skies and Liquid Things. He is a founder of Studio Locus Solus in Seoul and an electroacoustic music composer.

Lili Lai

Associate Professor of Anthropology at the School of Health Humanities, Peking University, 2023–2024 Berggruen Fellow.

Her research centers on the body, everyday life, and medical practices, with a focus on the transformation of traditional medical knowledges, science and technology studies (STS), and medical pluralism. Lai's major publications include Hygiene, Sociality, and Culture in Contemporary Rural China (Amsterdam University Press, 2016) and Gathering Medicines: Nation and Knowledge in China’s Mountain South (The University of Chicago Press, 2021). She has also published extensively in both international and domestic academic journals.

About The Berggruen Institute

The Berggruen Institute’s mission is to develop foundational ideas and shape political, economic, and social institutions for the 21st century. Providing critical analysis using an outwardly expansive and purposeful network, we bring together some of the best minds and most authoritative voices from across cultural and political boundaries to explore fundamental questions of our time. Our objective is enduring impact on the progress and direction of societies around the world.