Artist Statement

ISEA2016 Residency Programme Exhibition 20 May – 4 July, chi K11 art space

2016, Dimensions Variable. Light, Smoke, Web Camera and Live Video. Each Module (2): 300 x 275 x 190 cm

The project involves building a virtual tunnel between Wuhan and Hong Kong. The interactive installation will serve not only as a vehicle for communication between the viewers of the two locations, but also render a temporal environment connecting the spaces through the use of light as material. A video feedback loop between the two exhibition areas, and in reverse, causes a tunneling effect where infinitely multiplied images of both cells are strung together to simulate a tunnel connecting Hong Kong and Wuhan. The effects of the light installation on the viewers are in effect multiplied into this augmented reality. Given the latency that is imperative in the livestream, the instances created by the viewers of both cells are stretched out into a receding architectural passage of an incresasingly distant past. The artwork not only discourses at great lengths on the relationship between human and technology, but also our interpersonal relationships with one another, through different spatial realities, media and methods. hiramwong.com/The-Only-Thing-We-Share-Is-The-Past-Wuhan-Hong-Kong

• Hiram Wong is a practicing artist from Hong Kong. He received his Bachelor of Architecture from Cornell University in the United States, and his MA Fine Art from Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design in London, United Kingdom. He was the recipient of the Berengo Art Prize in 2013, and was invited to produce an artwork in the Venice, Italy for the Glasstress: White Light, White Heat exhibition – a collateral event of the 55th Venice Biennale. Most recently, he has participated in a number of artist residencies in Austria and Korea, and has held solo exhibitions in Graz and Seoul. Wong’s work has been exhibited in Venice, Graz, Seoul, Hong Kong, and in galleries across London.