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Feature: Co-creating with Hong Kong: a new media artist's interactive journey

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E-mail Xinhua, June 18, 2023

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By Xinhua writer Lu Yun

HONG KONG, June 18 (Xinhua) -- On a sunny afternoon, Hong Kong resident Anna Wong hopped on a bike to start a special tour of the world-renowned Gardens of Versailles. By cycling, she passed through the carefully designed tree alley, meticulously manicured lawns and animal-shaped fountains. The experience was so authentic that she almost forgot she was not in France.

This virtual journey is part of the "Virtual Versailles" exhibition currently on display at the Hong Kong Heritage Museum. The artist behind the interactive installation is Jeffrey Shaw, a prolific Australian new media artist whose works often offer interactive and immersive experiences.

"I've always wanted the audience to be the co-creators of my artwork," said Shaw, chair professor of the Academy of Visual Arts of Hong Kong Baptist University (HKBU).

Since moving to Hong Kong in 2009, Shaw has been an active figure in the city's new media art scene not only as an art creator, but also as curator and educator. His relationship with Hong Kong is also an interactive one: constantly he draws inspiration from the city's diverse and rich culture, and in return, he applies art to tell -- and let people feel for themselves -- the city's past, present and future.

LIFE AS ART

Inside the exhibition gallery, three curved screens were positioned carefully so that visitors would be able to see at least two screens at any point in the room. In front of each screen, on green-colored ground that resembles the lawn, a visitor is pedaling along the alley in the Gardens of Versailles, exploring its beauty.

"My intention with that design was to not only provide a bicyclist experience, but also to offer an experience to people who are just walking around in the gallery space experiencing these projections," said Shaw.

While each cyclist can see his own journey generated by the bikes, he can also see the journey of another cyclist with his peripheral vision. Shaw said the design draws inspiration from life.

"It's quite ground in real-world experience," Shaw said. "When we visit any space, we don't just look ahead. we are looking around all the time. Our real-world experience is a kind of collage of impressions," he said.

In fact, the real world has always been the source of inspiration for Shaw. In his milestone work "Legible City" in 1989, Shaw used computer-generated three-dimensional letters to replace urban buildings in cities such as Amsterdam. When the audience bicycled through the lettered city, it was like reading a book -- and choosing different "roads" can generate different meanings.

"I would say one of the fundamental objectives of all my art practices is to somehow create a link between the imaginative spaces and one's sense of real-world experience and bring these two things together," Shaw said.

TECH EMPOWERS ART

Walking into the visualization research center at HKBU, a giant 360-degree screen came into sight. The panoramic screen, consisting of over 400 LED panels with a resolution of 26 million pixels, embodies Shaw's vision of future cinema.

Using wearable sensors and biometric devices, this new cinematic platform can track the viewers' physical position, gesture, facial expression, body temperature and heart rate to understand what they are looking at, and how they are behaving with respect to other viewers.

Shaw said that the new platform will likely break the linear narrative of traditional movies and create a new artistic experience of "human-computer interaction."

In the context of a dance performance, for example, the dances will adjust in response to the reaction of the audience, which is captured by the sensors. In that case, "the viewers are the choreographers," Shaw said.

Similar interactive and immersive experiences were almost ubiquitous in Shaw's artworks. When the Hong Kong Palace Museum opened to the public last July, an interactive installation titled "Dreamscape of the Qianlong Emperor" attracted many.

In the gallery, twelve people were lying down on a specially designed circular couch modeled on Qing dynasty furniture, gazing up at a five-meter-wide circular video projection on the ceiling, and listening to the poem written by the emperor mourning his deceased wife.

In Shaw's view, art can connect the past, present and future.

"Every artist works from a baseline of a deep respect for the past, because nothing can be made that isn't in some way indebted to the past and isn't fundamentally a continuation of the past no matter how contemporary or radical," he said.

As artificial intelligence now generates images in seconds, Shaw sees AI and other technologies rather an opportunity that further opens up artists' imagination.

TRIBUTE TO HONG KONG

Born in Melbourne in 1944, Shaw left Australia at the age of 19, traveling to countries including Italy, Britain, and Germany to practice new media art. In 2009, at the invitation of the City University of Hong Kong, Shaw came to Hong Kong and has never thought of leaving.

The city gives him fresh inspiration, as he gradually develops an appreciation and respect for Chinese culture.

"When I first came to Hong Kong, Chinese calligraphy all looked the same to me. Now I can see that every calligraphy is fundamentally different," he said.

The city's love for art and culture also brought Shaw opportunities. In 2012, through the introduction by a local non-profit "Friends of Dunhuang (Hong Kong)," Shaw partnered with the Dunhuang Academy to digitally present the beauty of the Mogao Caves in Dunhuang. With an iPad in hand, viewers can get "inside" the cave via augmented reality technology.

Now having lived in Hong Kong for more than 10 years, Shaw always says that he has only "skimmed the surface" of the city. The city is relatively tiny in size, but its complexity and cultural density always intrigued artists like Shaw.

"I think this is probably one of the most photo-genetic cities in the world," he said.

"For me personally, it means that I've been able to make artworks that I would never have been able to make if I hadn't been living here," he said.

In 2021, commissioned by the city's Tourism Commission, Shaw led a team to produce "City in Time", a tourism project that uses augmented reality technology to enable visitors at designated sites to compare the scenes of Hong Kong's past with the present-day setting around them, using their smartphone as interfaces.

Now as the city reopens after the COVID-19 pandemic, Shaw was thrilled by the prospects of the tourism project. What excites him more is a planned project that would allow him to pay tribute to Hong Kong, the city that inspires and co-creates with him.

He said he plans to work on a Hong Kong version of "Legible City," replacing the city landscape again with letters, but this time with Chinese characters.

"I've enjoyed every minute that I've been here, getting to know the media art community here in Hong Kong, being part of the community, and being able to contribute to the community," he said. Enditem