TechBox 2022 –2023: A Journey across Interdisciplinary Experimental Collaborative Learning
TechBox is an experimental platform jointly established by WestK’s Performing Arts Division and the School of Theatre and Entertainment Arts at The Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts. Launched in 2021, the platform brings together media artists, theatre designers, as well as academy faculty and students to focus on research, exploration and experimentation.
It aims to provide maximum creative freedom to explore the integration of materials, senses, scenography, spatial arrangements and conceptual ideas in theatre aesthetics.
TechBox 2023: The Travellers and the Listeners is the platform's first full-scale production. Departing from the traditional director or scriptwriter-led creative process, the creative team devised this performance within a technological context, developing a unique, cross-disciplinary creation model.
Led by principal artist Samson Young, the Techbox team* combined artificial intelligence systems with live, impromptu sound and visual interactions in a 2022 work-in-progress presentation. In 2023, inspired by Walter de la Mare's poem The Listeners, Young’s music composition and videos creations’ music composition and videos creations guided the design team in creating the theatrical elements — the set, lighting, sound, and projections allow further space and these were then integrated with musicians and performers to complete the production.
This video traces the artists' creative journey over the past year, including workshops and the various stages in the production of The Travellers and the Listeners.
*Team members include teachers, students and alumni from the School of Theatre and Entertainment Arts at The Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, Theatre team, Technical and Production team from Performing Arts Division of West Kowloon
Principal Artist
Samson Young
Multi-disciplinary artist Samson Young works in sound, performance, video and installation. Young studied music, philosophy and gender studies, and graduated with a PhD in Music Composition from Princeton University in 2013.
He represented Hong Kong at the 2017 Venice Biennale, and was the recipient of the BMW Art Journey Award, a Prix Ars Electronica Award of Distinction in Sound Art and Digital Music, and the inaugural Sigg Prize (2019).
Young’s work has been exhibited at major international venues including the Guggenheim Museum, New York; Gropius Bau, Berlin; the National Museum of Art, Osaka; and Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin. Recent solo projects have been held at the De Appel, Amsterdam; Kunsthalle Düsseldorf; Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh; SMART Museum, Chicago; Manchester International Festival; M+ Pavilion, Hong Kong; Mori Art Museum, Tokyo; and Jameel Art Centre, Dubai.