Prof. Andrea L . Baldini

Changjiang Chair Professor

School of Arts  | Peking University, China

Andrea L. Baldini is a faculty member at the School of Arts, Peking University, where he holds a Changjiang Scholar Chair, the highest academic honor conferred by the Ministry of Culture of China. His research is interdisciplinary, spanning aesthetics, cultural studies, law, and visual culture. He is particularly interested in how creativity can infuse political and social values into everyday practices, with a critical focus on street art, graffiti, and public art.

Dr. Baldini is the author of three monographs, including A Philosophy Guide to Street Art and the Law, and has published numerous articles in leading international journals. He is also a co-founder and editor-in-chief of the East Asian Journal of Philosophy and Artology: Studies in the Arts.

Title:Street Art and Technologies of Subversion: Drones and Creative Resistance

Abstract: This seminar explores the relationship between street art and emerging technologies, investigating how technical innovation redefines the boundaries of this art form. The starting point is the "UFO - Urban Flying Opera" project by Carlo Ratti Associati, which uses programmed drones to create large-scale murals. This initiative raises a fundamental question: can we still speak of "street art" when traditional tools are replaced by automated technologies?

The presentation addresses this question by revisiting an essential definition of street art. It argues that the subversive gesture—the way it challenges social norms and the rules governing public spaces—is central to its essence. From this perspective, the artist's identity or the work's aesthetic properties are less critical than the artwork's capacity to subvert our expectations about visibility within the urban fabric.

While innovative, the Carlo Ratti project presents a core challenge: can drones, even as they perform creative acts, truly embody the spirit of resistance that lies at the heart of street art?

Prof. Qing Li, IEEE Fellow

Hong Kong Polytechnic University, China

Qing Li is a Chair Professor and Head of the Department of Computing, the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. He received his B.Eng. from Hunan University (Changsha), and M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Southern California (Los Angeles), all in computer science. His research interests include multi-modal data management, conceptual data modeling, social media, Web services, and e-learning systems. He has authored/co-authored over 500 publications in these areas, with over 28100 total citations according to Google Scholars. He is actively involved in the research community and has served as an associate editor of a number of major technical journals including IEEE Transactions on Artificial Intelligence (TAI), IEEE Transactions on Cognitive and Developmental Systems (TCDS), IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering (TKDE), ACM Transactions on Internet Technology (TOIT), Data Science and Engineering (DSE), and World Wide Web (WWW), in addition to being a Conference and Program Chair/Co-Chair of numerous major international conferences. He also sits/sat on the Steering Committees of DASFAA, ACM RecSys, IEEE U-MEDIA, ER, and ICWL. Prof. Li is a Fellow of IEEE.