Ying Cui (b. 1989) is an educator, curator, and documentary filmmaker who crosses boundaries between art, ethics and technology in his work. As a result of his deep engagement in socially engaged art and education, Ying will allow students under his direction to research psychological mechanisms of autocratic society for example; women's social struggle during the authoritarian regimes; or methodologies for historical investigations via media art.

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Ying holds an MFA degree from the Glasgow School of Art, Scotland and played a key role as Director of Exhibition Projects at Beijing's Inter Art Center (2015–2018). While there, he made major contributions to the shaping of various influential exhibitions and also co-founded the 'Inter Art Center New Documentaries Prize', which sought out new practices in contemporary media art in China when the country's cultural policy was still savish. 

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Now based in the U.S. as a PhD researcher at the University of Houston, Ying's academic concerns involve the ethical practice of generative AI technology within art education. He has diverse firsthand experience of cultural, economic and political realities, and from this base examines two sides to the same coin in AI: its potential to enrich educational tools; yet on the other hand also how it may be used—an ethically dubious practice widely pursued as creativity or simply proprietary product development without regard for international norms--to deprive citizens of freedom and subject them to human rights abuses. His aim is to find an ethical framework for AI in art education: enablers through local social circumstances.

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Ying is informed by the broad hay of his previous professional roles, extending to his ambition to raise urgent ethical questions which arise in art education as a field changed by technology based learning.

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Publication:

2014

（Transl.） Seduced by Art: Photography Past and Present 

by Hope Kingsley  (Author), Christopher Riopelle (Contributor),

2013, Published by National Gallery London

Mandarin Translated by Ying CUI and published by China Nationality Photographic Art Publishing House

​In Mandarin:（艺术的诱惑：摄影的前世今生）

Career:

2023 to Present: PhD Researcher at University of Houston, TX, USA

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2019 to 2022: Independent Art Educator, Filmmaker

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2018 to 2019: Director of VFX at Lifang Digital Technology, Chengdu, China
https://www.lifang-cg.com/
https://www.lf-cg.com/  (Mandarin)

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2015 to 2018: Director of Exhibition Projects at Inter Art Center, Beijing, China
http://www.interartcenter.com/

Education:

2023 - Present: PhD in Art Education, University of Houston, TX, USA

2012 - 2014: Master of Fine Art, Glasgow School of Art, Scotland
2008 - 2012: BA in English Study (Translation & Interpretation), Chongqing University, Chongqing, China

 

Residency:

2014: Takt Berlin, A.I.R, Berlin, Germany

2013: Ffffast Summer, A.I.R, Nicosia, Cyprus