HOW Online Panel | Playtime: Gamer, Dreamer, Breaker, Broker

About the Panel

 Playtime: 

 Gamer, Dreamer, Breaker, Broker 

The decentralization promised by metaverse seems to have rekindled people’s enthusiasm for a connected rhizomatic network as well as new systems and ways of perception; and this promise for the moment is often expressed in the form of game. Beneath the seemingly uselessness and lack of seriousness, the most common impressions attached to games, the forum will probe into the meaning and scope of use of some of the frequently mentioned concepts in the field of metaverse; the similarities and differences between the value of “uselessness” of game and art in terms of creative logic and aesthetic value from the perspective of practitioners; metaverse-related characteristics of RPG games and influence on artistic creation of new technologies such as AI automation; and core issues involved in NFT including ownership, openness and the role of art institute.

About the Host

 Ma Nan 

Lives in Hangzhou

Curator, Co Founder of Futurology Center, Partner of Open Media Lab

Head of Department of Research, Curation and International Exchange of Art Museum of China Academy of Art

Interested in the emerging fields of media/culture and art practices in sustainability. Curated art projects including The Museum Cellar, Meme City: Hacking Realities, Future Media/Art Manifesto, Flow with Matter: Grönlund-Nisunen Retrospective, ARC Symbiosis, etc. Translate and published Six Drawing Lessons, Brief History of World Theater, etc.

About the Guests

 David OReilly 

David OReilly is a multidisciplinary artist based in Los Angeles. Starting his career as an independent animator, he created numerous award winning short films such as Please Say Something & The External World. He has written for TV shows such as Adventure Time & South Park and created fictional video games in Spike Jonze’s Academy Award winning film Her. He is the creator of the iconic game Mountain and the universe simulation game Everything, narrated by Alan Watts. His Augmented Reality effects have been viewed over a billion times across social media.

 Sydney Xiong 

Sydney Xiong is an art-world veteran with a specialization in collection management and art evaluation of post-war and contemporary art. Appointed as director of APENFT since 2021, she initiated Art Dream Fund, curated major NFT show Digital Wanderlust, launched APENFT Marketplace backed by TRON blockchain, led the team to make investments in more than 30 leading NFT and metaverse projects. She has been interviewed and featured in Artnet, New York Times, Whitewall and has also been invited to participate in many internationally renowned forums, such as the TIME Roundtable - "Uncovering the Mystery of NFTs", NFT Talk Series jointly developed and hosted between ArtReview and APENFT Foundation- "How the NFT Artworld Can Create New Agency?".

 Yang Jing 

Yang Jing is a game producer, curator and researcher based in Hong Kong. Her work covers many aspects of game production and gaming culture. Her recent work, Forgetter, a narrative game, has won multiple awards world-wide. She is now working on multiple game production projects, ranging from literature games, to VR platformer games and  motion-capture game theater. Besides game production, Yang is known for her long-time dedication to game journalism and curation works. Her narrative output such as books, research papers and curations are widely available on various game media, publishing platforms and academic books.

Panel Partner

Work by fabric | ch

 fabric | ch，Platform of Future-Past 

Platform of Future-Past (2022), specifically created by fabric | ch for the exhibition, attempts to answer the question of how to provide an occasion and space for non-centralised observation or participation in the exhibition, and the installation itself can be seen as an architectural proposal based on the vast amount of data generated in the environment.

This platform overlooking the exhibition hall connects the entrance and exit directly - meaning that the platform offers the possibility of traversing the space without actually entering it and becoming an observer. Platform of Future-Past is equipped in three zones with environmental monitoring devices. The sensors record as much data as possible over time, generated by the continuously changing conditions, presences and uses in the exhibition space. The data is then stored on Platform Future-Past's servers and replayed in a loop on its computers. It is a "recorded moment", "frozen" on the data servers, that could potentially replay itself forever or is waiting for someone to reactivate it. A "data center" on the deck, with its set of interfaces and visualizations screens, lets the visitors-observers follow the ongoing process of recording.

About fabric | ch

 fabric | ch 

Combining experimentation, exhibition and production, fabric | ch formulates new architectural proposals and produces singular livable environments that bind localized and distributed landscapes, algorithmic behaviors, atmospheres and technologies.

Since the foundation of the studio, the architects and scientists of fabric | ch have investigated the field of contemporary space in its interaction with technologies. From network-based environments that blend physical and digital properties, to algorithmic recombinations of locations, temporalities and dimensions based on the objective sensing of their environmental data, it is the nature of our relationship to the environment and to contemporary space that is rephrased.

The work of fabric | ch therefore deals with issues related to the mediation of our relationship to place and distance, to automated climatic, informational and energy exchanges, post-mobility and globalization, embedded in a perspective of creolization, spatial interbreeding and sustainability.

About the Exhibition

HOW Art Museum is pleased to announce that the exhibition Beneath the Skin, Between the Machines will be on view from January 15th , 2022. As an art institute located at Shanghai Zhangjiang Hi-Tech Industrial Development Zone, one of the most important hi-tech parks in China, HOW Art Museum hopes to respond to its environment through "Beneath the Skin, Between the Machines". Meanwhile, as a continuation of the 2019 exhibition "Serious Games", this exhibition will continue to explore how to create technical public spaces and the various ways of incorporating technical issues into public discourse, and will open up a series of dialogues and debates related to the exhibition. Series panel will take place on the "panel installation" - "Platform of Future-Past" (2022), specially created by fabric | ch for the exhibition, where the conversations and actions will be captured, observed and archived as they are activated in the exhibition hall.

Click the links for more details about exhibition:

HOW 新展预告 | 皮肤之下，机器之间

HOW 新展 | 在“皮肤之下，机器之间”

HOW 皮肤之下，机器之间 | 新展终极剧透已来！

HOW 新展 | “皮肤之下，机器之间”今日正式开幕

HOW 在线展览 | 皮肤之下，机器之间

Click the links for more details about the panel:

HOW皮肤之下，机器之间 | 论坛计划

HOW Series Panel ⑴ | AI and Craftsmanship: Art, Algorithm and Automation

HOW系列论坛⑴回顾 | AI与技艺：艺术算法与自动化

HOW Online Panel | Investigating Sensoriums: Beyond Life /Machine Dichotomy

HOW系列论坛⑵回顾 | 感知探究：超越生命/机器二元

HOW Online Panel | “Breeding” Space/ Material, Organ and Environments

HOW系列论坛⑶回顾 | “孕育”空间：材料、器官和环境

HOW Online Panel | The Female Robots

HOW系列论坛⑷回顾 | 女机器人（上）

HOW系列论坛⑷回顾 | 女机器人（下）

About the Curator

 Fu Liaoliao 

Fu Liaoliao is a curator based in Shanghai. Her curatorial research and practice include the critiques in the context of socio-economic system, live-based works and the function of public space and its borders. Her recent curatorial works include Noire Lumière (2020/2021), Interrupted Meals (2020), Serious Games (2019) and Precariats’ Meeting (2017). She also curated solo shows for artists such as Thomas Hirschhorn (2018), Ho Tzu Nyen (2018) and Li Binyuan (2019). She is nominated as the curator of the year by Art Award China (AAC) in 2019 and is currently the director of exhibition department of HOW Art Museum.