Art in the Cloud
Art in the Cloud – Royce NG x Alvaro CASSINELLI
Royce NG (Artist)
Ng is an artist currently based in Hong Kong working in digital media and performance who deals with the intersections of modern Asian history, trans-national trade, drugs, political economy and aesthetics. His works were featured in the 2019 exhibition ‘Phantom Plane: Cyberpunk in the Year of the Future’ at Tai Kwun Contemporary in Hong Kong and in 2020, he will have his first solo presentation in Japan with ‘The Death of Manchuria…’ at ASAKUSA in Tokyo. In 2021, his works will feature in the Shanghai Biennale XIII.
Alvaro CASSINELLI (Artist)
Born in Uruguay, Cassinelli is an equilibrist walking the thin line between Art and Science. He co-founded and led the Meta-Perception group at the Ishikawa-Oku Laboratory, University of Tokyo – a research group specialized on interfaces for expanding the vocabulary of HCI and media arts. He is presently Associate Professor and co-founder of the XRL/AM (Extended Reality Lab, Augmented Materiality Group) at the School of Creative Media in Hong Kong. Awards includes the Grand Prize [Art Division] (9th Japan Media Art Festival), Excellence Prize [Entertainment Division] (13th Japan Media Art Festival), Honorary Mention (Ars Electronica), NISSAN Innovative Award (2010), Jury Grand Prize at Laval Virtual (2011) among others.
Video: The Polyphonous Avatar
This artwork is concerned with the notion of presence conveyed through physical absence, and the minimal threshold of technological simulation that can produce the feeling of the performer’s presence in the space for the audience. The work feature a dialogue conducted between the artist and physicist/inventor Dr. Alvaro Cassinelli from the Augmented Materiality Lab at the School of Creative Media, Hong Kong on the topics of presence, virtual qualia, black box technologies and ways of breaking free from technological determination, presented through the morphing visage of a single avatar.
