Electric Dreams, the virtual symposium and exhibition, explores the dystopian ghosts of cyberpunk, juxtaposing technological achievements with societal decay while also discussing the new realities and possibilities that are now emerging from that neural darkness. Electric Dreams calls for an interdisciplinary discourse to open new pathways for exploring cutting-edge technologies, such as artificial intelligence and the metaverse, and their creative potential.

We ask: What are the dreams and dystopias of our time? Where are we now, and what possible futures are open to us, if any?

Electric Dreams is the first symposium and exhibition organised by the Computational Media and Arts Thrust (CMA) at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (Guangzhou). The global pandemic has led to accelerated innovation in international symposia and exhibitions, and under the circumstances it is fitting that Electric Dreams 2022: 1st CMA International Symposium and Exhibition on Computational Media and Arts will run entirely online. The symposium will take place on 25 - 26 Aug 2022, and the exhibition will remain online until the 25th June 2023.

Symposium

Schedule

All times are in BJT (Bejing) time.

All times are in BST (London) time.

25 August

14:00

07:00

Memo Akten

Keynote Speech

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Distributed Consciousness

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15:00

08:00

Refik Anadol

Talk

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Space in the Mind of a Machine

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15:30

08:30

Luba Elliott

Talk

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AI Art: Finding its Place between Technology, Contemporary Art and NFT

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16:00

09:00

Memo Akten, Refik Anadol, Luba Elliott

Panel chaired by Theo Papatheodorou

16:30

09:30

Break

17:30

10:30

ciphrd

Talk

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New paradigms to share generative art through decentralized applications

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18:00

11:00

Sylvain Levy

Talk

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How should a traditional art collection navigate this new decade?

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18:30

11:30

Eva Jäger

Talk

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Creative AI Futures: Theory and Practice

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19:00

12:00

ciphrid, Sylvain Levy, Eva Jäger

Panel chaired by Varvara Guljajeva

26 August

14:00

07:00

Jo Wei

Talk

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Synthetic Fantasy – Recent Projects on BioArt in China

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14:30

07:30

Tristan Braud

Talk

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Augmented Reality for Arts – Limitations, Challenges, and Perspectives.

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15:00

08:00

Dragan Janković

Talk

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Art experience in VR: A question of ecological validity

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15:30

08:30

Jo Wei, Tristan Braud, Dragan Janković

Panel chaired by Kang Zhang

16:00

09:00

Break

17:00

10:00

Masaki Fujihata

Talk

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Augmenting the world?

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17:30

10:30

Varvara Guljajeva

Curator Tour

18:00

11:00

Irini Papadimitriou

Talk

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Future Perfect

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18:30

11:30

Masaki Fujihata and Irini Papadimitriou

Panel chaired by Varvara Guljajeva

Artists

Artists

Student works

Credits

Symposium / Exhibition Chairs

Varvara Guljajeva, Theodoros Papatheodorou

Symposium curators

Varvara Guljajeva, Theodoros Papatheodorou, Kang Zhang

Exhibition curators

Varvara Guljajeva, Theodoros Papatheodorou

Organising Team

Varvara Guljajeva, Theodoros Papatheodorou, Jake Zhang, Rui Hu, Zikai Alex Wen, Iurii Kuzmin

Web design

Victor Hwang

Virtual exhibition design and development

Varm Studio

Organizers

The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (Guangzhou) Computational Media and Arts logo

Partners

School of Humanities and Social Science logo Shaw Auditorium Unit logo