Tech-tonic shifts

By Chitralekha Basu | HK EDITION | Updated: 2025-10-17 15:05

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Lam Pok-yin's installation, An Increasingly Difficult and Futile Task, comprises a series of outdated mobile phones that ask viewers to verify if they are human. [ANDY CHONG / CHINA DAILY]

Guan Xiao's three-channel video Cognitive Space (2013) displays hundreds of random images in the shape of digital file icons, for a split second each, alluding to the sensory overload experienced in the digital realm. Guo Cheng's installation, The Weather Consensus (2022-25), reads varying weather data on the same city released by three different sources, to create a computational competition, with the "winner" preserved on the blockchain and displayed on a vertical digital screen.

"It's shaped like an antenna tower and combines blockchain technology with traditional neon lighting," says exhibition co-curator Kwok Ying, drawing attention to the juxtaposition of old and new technologies in The Weather Consensus. The data is also reflected in playful neon sculptures of cloud, rain and the sun — which light up to indicate the weather situation in real time — "adding a warm human touch to a heavy concept".

The piece calls into question blockchain's USP as a site for storing data that remains secure and incorruptible for all eternity, underscoring the fact that the data in question may not be an accurate reflection of the truth.