Artists and art groups from the Chinese mainland, Hong Kong and Macao are presenting their new media works at the 2022 Hong Kong-Macao Visual Art Biennale at the Shenzhen Museum of Contemporary Art and Urban Planning in Futian District.

With the theme “Perceptual & Intellectual,” the biennale is jointly presented by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the Culture, Sports and Tourism Bureau of the Government of the HKSAR, and the Secretariat for Social Affairs and Culture of the Government of the Macao SAR. Inaugurated in 2008, the biennale has been an important platform for the exchange among artists from the mainland, Hong Kong and Macao.

Multimedia installation “Flowing Forms” by Qian Honglin. Photos by Cao Zhen except otherwise stated

A visitor takes photos of Wang Peisheng’s new media installation “Dyson Ball.”

The mainland section (Beijing) was held last month at the Beijing Quanyechang Cultural Arts Center. With the theme of “Perceptual & Intellectual — The Coexistence Realm of Humanity and Creation,” the mainland section (Shenzhen) addresses how to build a sustainable organic system between humanity and creation in an artistic way, and achieve a harmonious symbiosis between humans and machines in the background of artificial intelligence.

Visitors can roam in scenes from classic Chinese books via Deng Zuyun’s “Mind VR Exploration.” It is based on “The Story of the Stone,” one of the four most famous ancient Chinese novels, and the Chinese mythological works “The Classic of Mountains and Seas” and “The Universal Harmony.”

Kinetic video installation "dist.duo" by Kenny Wong. Photo courtesy of the exhibition organizer

New media installation "Lose One's Way" by Li Yan. Photo courtesy of the exhibition organizer

“The artists at the exhibition possess academic backgrounds in art and technology, enjoy national influence in the field of contemporary installation and new media interactive art, and have won honors abroad. The exhibition not only reflects the innovative art scene in the Greater Bay Area, but also presents the growing art ecology with infinite vitality and potential. It also highlights the technology-based high-quality development, innovation-based sustainable development and structure-based integrated development in the Greater Bay Area,” said Yan Weixin, who co-curated the exhibition’s mainland section (Shenzhen) with Zhang Xinying.

Kinetic installation "Migratory Birds" by Joseph Chan. Photo courtesy of the exhibition organizer

Photography and video installation "The Interconnected Nature (shān shuǐ)" by Kun Wang-tou. Photo courtesy of the exhibition organizer

With the theme of “Perceptual & Intellectual — Explorations Into Everything and Oneself,” the Hong Kong section presents how technology, from mechanics to electronics, digitalization to artificial intelligence, can be expanded and applied to creative works, and explores how humans communicate with nature through a blend of art, science and technology.

Two interactive works, “Cinemorpheque” by Chris Cheung and “Tree of Heaven” by Samuel Yip and Janice To, attracted most visitors at the exhibition that opened last Friday. “Cinemorpheque” employs the machine learning model from Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) to create the four seasons while “Tree of Heaven” uses digital and artificial intelligence to construct a vegetation world as a virtual paradise, leading viewers into another dimension of nature through sensory interaction.

A visitor interacts with Chris Cheung’s “Cinemorpheque.”

Visitors watch interactive work “Tree of Heaven” by Samuel Yip and Janice To. 

The Macao segment presents how tradition, nature and memory are reshaped in the digital era. With the theme of “Digital Text — A New Cognition of Culture,” the segment showcases six Macao artists, whose works demonstrate close visual connections with traditional Chinese landscape ink paintings.

Lampo Leong’s works consciously broaden the expressiveness of ink art through his dynamic images, digital processing and randomly generated scene structure.

Similarly, Cindy Ng, who has been dedicated to the exploration of ink painting and the boundary of science and technology over years, takes the changing rhythm from time to time to make nature, ink painting, atmosphere and digital technology constantly integrate in her works, thereby revealing the traditional ink painting realm with contemporary thinking and modern media materials.

 Visitors watch video installation “Inkniverse II” directed by Lampo Leong and Zhao Yanxiu.

Dates: Through Feb. 19

Hours: 10:30 a.m.-6 p.m., closed Mondays

Tickets: Free

Venue: Shenzhen Museum of Contemporary Art and Urban Planning, Futian District (深圳市當代藝術與城市規劃館)

Metro: Line 3 or 4 to Children’s Palace Station (少年宮站), Exit A2