Eleven projects from Taiwan, Macau, Japan, France and Germany show how artificial intelligence, algorithms and human presence are changing the boundaries of the artwork.
From 30 October to 22 November, the tenth TAxT Techno Art Festival is taking place at the Chung Yuan Cultural and Creative Park in Taoyuan (Taiwan). Its theme is Be Tokens: 現實世界>>>生成中, or “The Real World Is Being Generated.” The exhibition invites us to look at reality as a space that is continuously changing through the interaction of humans and technology.
The festival’s curator, Hung Yi-ping, a professor at National Taiwan University, turns to the notion of the token — the unit into which language models break text for processing. In the exhibition, this idea extends beyond language: the artists explore how digital systems can perceive and transform images, movements, bodily sensations, memories and dreams.
When the viewer becomes part of the work
In some projects, the visitor’s presence directly changes the artwork. In Habitat of Sound #2: Artificial Habitat the sounds of birds pass through aluminum pipes that evoke a coastal and industrial landscape. The longer a person stays nearby, the more the algorithm fragments and distorts the sound.
The installation AURA by the French studio hellobastworkshop responds to the position and warmth of the human body, creating spheres of light. When two people come near, their light images merge. In One Hundred Faces of Water In Huang Meng-fan's work, regional hydrological data are turned into a projection of moving water, and visitors' footsteps create new waves upon it.
Here the human is not merely observing the work: their movements, voice, warmth and the time spent near the installation become part of the artistic process.
Memory, dreams and artificial intelligence
Other artists turn to human experience that is difficult to capture directly. In 40Hz (V2) the ULTRACOMBOS collective explores dreams and lucid dreams: collected images and memories are processed by artificial intelligence and projected onto the body. In The Symmetrical Hallucinations: A Medical Mirror real medical data are juxtaposed with fictional images created by a generative system. The work raises the question of how technology reproduces human experience and where the boundary lies between data and their interpretation.
In the project Artificial Intelligence and Artificial Intelligence are in Conversation two industrial robotic arms enter into a dialogue through virtual characters representing art universities of Taiwan and Japan. Visitors can ask them questions. And the work Artificial Iteration (AI) Bianki Lei juxtaposes an image created by artificial intelligence with its painted version, returning the viewer to the question of authorship and the role of the artist.
From interaction to co-creation
The festival is built around three directions: coexistence, co-creation and joint statement. They reveal different models of the relationship between humans and technology: from interaction with the surrounding environment to the joint creation of images and new modes of communication.
TAxT also includes an educational programme: meetings, lectures, master classes, school projects and guided tours. Its task is to introduce technological art not only to exhibition visitors, but also to those who are only beginning to explore the possibilities of digital tools.
At TAxT the usual role of the viewer changes. They no longer stand before a finished work: their presence can change the sound, image or movement of the installation. Art becomes a process in which human perception and machine interpretation meet. This is no longer merely the use of new technologies in creativity, but a search for an artistic language in which the human and the digital system become participants in a single process.
