Culture & Leisure

2025 Hong Kong Basel is highlighted by AI involved creation. Artists including Mak2, Emma Webster, Miao Ying, Jon Rafman, Frank Wang Yefeng, Alison Nguyen, and Lu Yang blend AI creating with traditional art. The exhibition of Encounters collects two pieces of outstanding AI artistic installation, including Lu Yang’s DOKU the Creator and Jon Rafman’s Signal Rot.  “Lu Yang used AI technology to model himself based on his real image and used AI to assist in his painting,” said Allison Cheung Ka-jung, 25, director of Encounters. Inspired by pop-up stores, the installation transforms the act of purchasing into a game of chance, with artworks created by artist DOKU concealed in “blind boxes”, which sell non-fungible tokens that can be shown on the screen instantly after consumers’ purchasing.  Jon Rafman’s Signal Rot, exhibiting in Neon Parc, Encounters exhibition, uses AI to generate the virtue band model and the music.  “It's actually a fictional band that he's created through AI, and there's a number of fictional bands that we created through AI and built kind of online presence or personalities for,” said Madé Spencer-Castle, 31, associate director of Neon Parc, Encounters exhibition. “Each AI band member has Instagram accounts even though they're completely AI-generated,” he added. Shao Fengtian's TENC oil painting series in the Madein Gallery, Galleries exhibition, also uses AI technology to assist in drawing lines and colouring.  “This painting was created by Shao Fengtian by feeding AI the photos he took and then using AI to generate lines and colours,” said La Xueer, 31, the director of Madein Gallery.  “Artists have always been really at the forefront of new technology and utilising new technology in creative and innovative ways,” said Spencer-Castle. “Art needs to evolve and change with practice. If you are old-fashioned and keep looking to history for inspiration, it …

The new performance architecture exhibition Pollinator comes to Hong Kong for the first time at WestK harbourfront as part of the WestK FunFest 2025, creating a unique space for collaboration between local artists from different fields. The Pollinator is co-created by American artists Alex Schweder and Ward Shelley. They have invited 18 local performance and visual artists to take turns living in the five tents that are connected by a giant wheel. The idea is to attract artists from different cultural backgrounds and to explore how architecture affects social connections, according to the poster at the exhibition. During the artists’ residency, the only way to communicate or to move between the buildings is to use the giant wheel, which is entirely human-powered. “The wheel is like a mixer that mixes us up together as a community,” said Ward Shelley, 75, one of the co-creators of Pollinator. Each artist occupies one of the tents as a studio to display their creative process and final work. The first group of cohabitating artists comes from four fields: performance architecture, paper art, dance, and performance art. “One of the rules in the community is that artists cannot come down from the buildings for the whole period, and artists are not allowed to rest in the building where they have their studios,” said Shelley. “The rules make us interact.”  “We do not know each other and we all come from different countries, so we think differently, ” said Florence Lam, 33, a performance artist.  “But because we are going to be sharing the space and interacting with each other, my ‘neighbours’ will be involved in what I am creating,” Lam added. Ho Tung is a 27-year-old dancer. It is her first time participating in an outdoor performance art exhibition. “I often go to the ‘neighbours’ …