BIT STREET Hong Kong 香港BIT街

A Cross-platform Collaboration between The New Art Fest ’20 and Content Lab empowered by Videotage.

Date: August 7 – 11 , 2020
Co-presented by: The New Art Fest ’20 & Videotage
Curator: Isaac Leung.

During COVID-19 pandemic, our lives have significantly changed. We had to rethink our daily routines while practising social distancing. For more than half a year, how did media artists respond to this world health crisis?

Bit Street, Hong Kong program, features newly created short videos by four millennial media artists, including Chen Pin Tao (Greenwich, Sydney, AU, 1994), Lu Yang (Shanghai, 1984), Suze Chan (Hong Kong, 1994), and Zhiwan Cheung (Long Beach, CA USA, 1986), revealing their post-pandemic observations and imagination. Artworks will be shown online at both Content Lab and TNAF ’20. Video trailers will also appear on 51 interactive billboards from MOP-TOMI-Lx network, over the streets and subway stations in Lisbon.

Curatorial statement

Isaac Leung

Bit Street, a debut collaboration between Videotage and The New Art Fest, aims to explore how video works by millennial artists in Hong Kong, and China, redefine the notions of materiality and immateriality of space through the moving image. The curated works question how the production of fictional physical spaces rendered through digital technology can create alternative sensorial experiences.

Chen Pin Tao’s Baptizing The Capitalist Pigs By The Clear Water Bay creates a flat vector illustration of a park, which eventuates into an alien life form attacking the middle-class urban dwellers, expressed through technoerotic metaphors of excessive capitalism. Lu Yang uses as iconography the heroic bodies in The Great Adventure of Material World. By creating an imagined future city with radical infrastructure, Yang allows viewers to navigate through a series of fight scenes aiming to secure a path toward a future world. Suze Chan’s What is it that makes the days different? invokes a walking journey on the street, with a superimposed mirror above reflecting a gloved hand touching various products and a split screen portraying a group of pigeons eating on the ground, manifesting the profound uncanniness of a mind in the physical world. In Arcifinious Faces Places and Spaces, Zhiwan Cheung shares with viewers a version of their own illusion. By montaging various footages of nature, the work reflects on the artist’s consciousness.

Bit Street begins with the idea of commissioning four artists to create a short video work for public screens in Lisbon. While these works will be showcased online in the midst of the pandemic, this project will explore how the artists’ imagined spaces will be perceived in a virtual setting and beyond.

Launch dates

August 7: 陳品陶 Chen Pin Tao // Baptizing The Capitalist Pigs By The Clear Water Bay (2020)

August 8: 陸揚 Lu Yang // The Great Adventure of Material World (2019)

August 9: suze陳 Suze Chan // What is it that makes the days different? (2020)

August 10: Zhiwan Cheung // Arcifinious Faces Places and Spaces (2020)

Live roundtable

Artists, their work, and the way they have faced the pandemic

August 11
22:00 (HKG); 15:00 (LIS); 10:00 (NYC)
Venue: Zoom.us

Antonio C Pinto
Chen Pin Tao
Isaac Leung
Suze Chan
Zhiwan Cheung

Online screenings

The New Art Fest ’20
Time: 19:00 (HKG); 12:00 (LIS); 07:00 (NYC)
Venue: https://thenewartfest.com/en/bit-street-hong-kong/

Content Lab
Time: 7:00 pm
Venue: http://www.contentlab.hk/cinema

Biographical notes


Isaac Leung
Image: courtesy of the artist

Isaac Leung is a practicing artist, curator, and scholar in art and culture.

In 2003, Leung received an Honorary Fellowship of a Bachelor of Fine Arts at the New Media Art Department of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. In 2013, Leung was appointed as the Chairman of Videotage. During his tenure, he initiated and participated in projects that included exhibitions, workshops, lectures, publications, online projects, and symposia. Some of these include 40 Years of Video Art in Germany and Hong Kong (Hong Kong and Germany), The 12th Venice Biennale International Architecture Exhibition (Italy and Hong Kong), Perpetual Art Machine (USA), Time Test – International Video Art Research Exhibition (China), ISEA Festival (Hong Kong, China), Both Sides Now (Hong Kong, UK, and various countries), Loop Barcelona (Spain), One World Exposition (Hong Kong), China Remixed (USA), Clockenflap (Hong Kong), and Art Basel Crowdfunding Initiative (Hong Kong). Leung has taught at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, the Hong Kong Baptist University, the City University of Hong Kong, the Education University of Hong Kong and the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. He is currently Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Arts of the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

梁學彬身兼藝術家、策展人及藝術文化研究學者。

在2003年，梁學彬獲頒美國芝加哥藝術學院的新媒體藝術系美術學位榮譽院士。2013年，梁氏被委任為錄映太奇的主席。任內推動並參與多個新媒體藝術計劃，內容包括展覽、工作坊、講座、出版、網絡計劃及專題討論會，當中有二零零六年德國及香港錄像藝術四十年（香港和德國）、威尼斯雙年展國際建築展（意大利威尼斯，香港）、Perpetual Art Machine（美國紐約）、時間測試：國際錄像藝術研究觀摩展（中國）、電子藝術交流協會藝術節（ISEA Festival）（香港）、彼岸觀自在（香港，英國和各國）、Loop巴塞羅那（西班牙）、平行世界（香港）、China Remixed（美國）和巴塞爾藝術博覽會眾籌項目（香港）。梁氏曾任教於香港中文大學、香港浸會大學、香港城市大學、以及香港理工大學。梁氏現擔任香港中文大學文學院助理教授。

陳品陶 Chen Pin Tao
Image: courtesy of the artist

Tao’s interests focuses on the creations of transcendental, ecstatic, and transgressive realities through fetishistic and magical alchemy.  The invention of worlding devices are means to manipulate real life objects and reality, allowing the qualia of objects to be extracted , mutually exhausted, and elevated beyond representation.  The ontological language and ecological logic within these realities avoid conventional phenomenological grasp, produces semiotic slippage, and reside in the withdrawn potentiality, virtuality and actuality of space, object, imagery, and their concurrent and unplanned synthesis to generate labyrinthine within space-time and within containers, volume, and bodies without organs.

The spatial, volumnetric, objectual, and imagerial dimensions are not merely vessels encapsulating transcendental and entropic qualities, but ontological beings complex enough to seek release from its organization, determine and generate a multiplicity of worlds and manifest enlivenment and energy, in which contains infinite transformative potential within deeply ordered chaos and rebirth across a vast spectrum of scale.

陳品陶透過拜物及獸性的煉金術過程創造超驗和具侵犯性的現實。物質的無限潛力，質素，及生態在這些具創造性的現實當中被提煉出來並且相互消耗。這些現實中的本體語言和生態邏輯逃避常規現象學上的理解，產生了符號學上的滑移，並在空間，物體和頻率之間不斷穿越及駐留。

空間，體量，物件和頻率的維度不僅是裝載先驗性和熵性的器皿。其複雜性足以尋求從結構組織中釋放出來的多重世界，並表現出生機勃勃的活力和能量。這些空間及物件包含著混沌及重生的無限潛能。

Lu Yang

Lu Yang (b. Shanghai, China) is a multi-media artist based in Shanghai. Mortality, androgyny, hysteria, existentialism and spiritual neurology feed Lu’s jarring and at times morbid fantasies. Also taking inspiration and resources from Anime, gaming and Sci-fi subcultures, Lu explores his fantasies through mediums including 3D animation, immersive video game installation, holographic, live performances, virtual reality, and computer programming. Lu has collaborated with scientists, psychologists, performers, designers, experimental composers, Pop Music producers, robotics labs, and celebrities throughout his practice.

Lu Yang has held exhibitions at UCCA (Beijing), MWoods (Beijing), Cc Foundation (Shanghai), Spiral (Tokyo), Fukuoka Museum of Asian Art (Fukuoka, Japan), Société (Berlin), MOCA Cleveland (Cleveland, Ohio). He has participated in several international biennials and triennials such as 2012 & 2018 Shanghai Biennial, 2018 Athens Biennale, 2016 Liverpool Biennial, 2016 International Digital Art Biennale (Montreal), Chinese Pavilion of the 56th Venice Biennale, and 2014 Fukuoka Triennial. In 2019, Lu became the 8th BMW Art Journey winner and started the Yang Digital Incarnation project.  

陸揚是一位出生以及工作於上海的多媒體藝術家，他創造對死亡、無性、精神 疾病以及對真實生命形式和神靈的神經結構的幻想，通常是病態和令人震驚 的。 陸揚的作品形式受動漫，電子遊戲和科幻的亞文化影響，其輸出涵蓋3D動畫，視頻遊戲裝置，全息，現場演出，VR甚至程序操作等，陸揚的作品涉及與科學家，心理學家，舞者，設計師，實驗作曲家，流行音樂制作人，機器人公司和偶像明星的頻繁合作。 

陸揚在UCCA(北京)，木木美術館(北 京)，CC基金會(上海)，Spiral(東京)，福岡亞洲美術館(福岡)， Société(柏林)，克利夫蘭當代藝術博物館(克利夫蘭) 等場館舉辦過重要 的個人展覽。陸揚還參加了眾多雙年展三年展，如:2018年和2012年上海雙 年展，2018年雅典雙年展，2016年利物浦雙年展，2016年蒙特利爾國際數碼藝術雙年展，2015年第56屆威尼斯雙年展中國館，以及2014年福岡亞洲藝術三年展等，最新於2020年受邀參加巴黎蓬皮杜藝術中心的神經科學展。其作品在國際上也屢次獲獎，最近一次獲得了寶馬藝術之旅大獎並開啟數字轉生計畫。

suze陳 Suze Chan
Image: courtesy of the artist

Born 1994 in Hong Kong. Graduated 2016 from Communication Design, School of Design, PolyU Hong Kong. Once not feeling like being called as an artist, now it’s okay. Have been doing different jobs e.g. waitress, gallery assistant, graphic designer, courier, VJ, warehouse clerk, shop cashier, etc.

1994年生於香港，2016年畢業於香港理工大學設計學院傳意設計系。曾經不喜歡被稱為藝術家，現在還可以。一直在打不同的工：侍應、畫廊助理、平面設計師、外賣員、VJ、倉務員、店鋪收銀員等。

Zhiwan Cheung
Image: courtesy of the artist

Zhiwan Cheung (b. Long Beach, CA) received his BFA from Cornell University and his MFA from Carnegie Mellon University. Zhiwan first got a taste of performing in front of a camera as a book reviewer for Reading Rainbow, the 1990’s television show advocating reading for children. Since then, Zhiwan has continued to probe the intersection of national identity and the personal psyche, focusing on how and where they join and diverge. As an odyssey toward a home that does not exist, a rite of passage with no destination, Zhiwan uses his work to search for a critical understanding of an impossible homecoming. Zhiwan also hosts a podcast, Seeing Color. This podcast (seeingcolorpod.com) talks with cultural workers and artists of color in order to expand the area of what is a predominantly white space in the arts. Zhiwan has exhibited work both nationally and internationally in venues such as NURTUREart Gallery in New York, Pica Pica Gallery in Berlin, and The Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh. More recently, Zhiwan received a Fulbright grant to research the Fluxus art group in Berlin, Germany. Currently, Zhiwan is currently a Professor of Media Arts at the United International College in Zhuhai, China. 

Zhiwan Cheung 生於美國加州長灘，獲得康奈爾大學藝術學士和卡內基梅隆大學藝術碩士。他在鏡頭前演出的首次體驗，是在Reading Rainbow──1990年代向兒童推廣閱讀的電視節目中擔任書評者。此後，他持續探究民族認同與個人心靈的交集，聚焦於兩者如何及在何處連繫和分離。 Zhiwan 利用他的作品去思索對於無法歸家的批判性理解，如同一段漫長漂泊的旅程，通往一個不存在的家，又如一個沒有終點的通過禮儀。 Zhiwan 亦有主持一個Podcast節目──Seeing Color。Seeing Color (seeingcolorpod.com) 與不同膚色的文化工作者和藝術家對談，藉此擴充在藝術世界顯著空白的領域。Zhiwan的作品曾在美國和各國際場地展出，例如紐約NURTUREart Gallery、柏林Pica Pica Gallery、匹兹堡The Andy Warhol Museum。最近，他獲得傅爾布萊特計畫的資助，以研究德國柏林的激浪派藝術群組。現時，Zhiwan在中國珠海的聯合國際學院擔任媒體藝術系的教授。