osage hong kong 4/F, hing yip street, osage Kwun Tong, Kowloon, Hong Kong t: (852) 2389 8332 e: [email protected] w: www.osagegallery.com Media Release 25 September 2014 Attention Arts and Culture Editors For immediate release KINGSLEY NG 伍韶勁 AT ‘DIGITAL LIFE 2014 – PLAY’ ROMAEUROPA FESTIVAL at La Pelanda - MACRO Testaccio Largo Orazio Giustiniani 4, Rome, Italy 9.10 – 30.11.2014 Osage Gallery is proud announce the participation of Hong Kong new media Kingsley Ng, recipient of Best Artist (Media Arts) in last year's Hong Kong Arts Development Awards, in the exhibition Digital Life 2014 – PLAY, the technological arm of Romaeuropa, one of the most prestigious cultural events in Italy and Europe, from 9 October to 30 November 2014 in Rome, Italy. For more about the Festival: http://romaeuropa.net/ In this fifth edition of the DIGITAL LIFE dedicated to music and to custom-made musical instruments, Kingsley will be showing one of his pivotal works Métier à tisser musical (Musical Loom), an interactive sound installation and a production of Le Fresnoy, Studio national des arts contemporains. The work transformed a 250 year-old antique French loom into a sound-image instrument. It was inspired by the loom in northern France where the ancient machine has played a significant role in the region’s boom and prosperity. The loom used in the installation was part of the permanent collection of the Jacquard Museum in Roubaix, France, which was acquired for production of this work with the generosity of the Museum and Mr José Honoré. 1 Métier à tisser musical (Musical Loom) 音樂紡織機 interactive sound installation | 175 x 130 x 200 cm | 2005 Production Le Fresnoy, Studio national des arts contemporains Image courtesy of the artist and Osage Gallery 2 With this Musical Loom, the player can generate mechanical soundscapes or malleable musical expressions. Instead of using its wooden handle, participants weave sounds and images by controlling a light beam on the threads. A single screen is projected onto the threads of the loom through a mirror. Infra-red camera, infra-red and ultrasonic distance sensors are used for tracking participants’ movements. One can thus play the threads like a harp and control four-tone harmony and volumes by the hand’s position in mid-air. Like the Japanese haiku, minimal words and syllables can trigger a magnificent array of images. The mechanical sound and the flow of threads not only remind one of the industrial past, but also evoke a whole set of collective emotions and memories. “The Analytical Engine weaves algebraical patterns just as the Jacquard loom weaves flowers and leaves...” Art historian Lev Manovich, citing a remark made by Ada Augusta, the first computer programmer “Here, this readymade from 250 years ago speaks individually to each spectator, each one having the freedom to make his own connections with local or global history and to weave a unique soundscape based on his experience with the work.” Centre Pompidou ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ABOUT THE ARTIST Kingsley Ng 伍韶勁 (b. 1980, Hong Kong) is an inter-disciplinary artist with a focus on conceptual, site-specific and community-engaging projects. He believes art helps us to mediate our environment, whether as viewer or as participator. Like the grazing of the wind against grass, it is also about the experience as well as emotions. Art reveals the invisible and gives shape to the intangible. These principles are driven not by a self-indulgent romance of art, but a belief that art can be socially relevant. Art provides a language to render social issues alive, to facilitate a meditation on ideas and impressions that can be engaged across a larger public. Ng’s pursued the arts in different postgraduate programs. He received postgraduate training at Le Fresnoy – National Studio of Contemporary Arts in France under the tutelage of renowned artists including Alain Fleischer, Andrea Cera, Atau Tanaka and Gary Hill and graduated with the highest honors (les felicitation du jury à l'unanimité). He continued his studies with an MSc Sustainable Design degree from the University of Edinburgh in the UK and a BFA New Media Art degree from the Ryerson University in Canada. Ng’s works have been featured in notable exhibitions and international venues. Examples include Guangzhou Triennial in China, Land Art Biennial in Mongolia, Echigo Tsumari Art Triennial in Japan, NIME at IRCAM- Centre Pompidou in France, Fabrica Centre in Italy, Kunsthalle Wien in Austria, Lille Europe Pavilion in Shanghai 3 Expo, InterAccess Electronic Media Arts Centre in Canada, and the Hong Kong Museum of Art. Kingsley Ng is an inter-disciplinary artist with focuses on conceptual, site-specific, and community-engaging projects. Famed for his imaginative and intelligent technological usage in art making, he has won wide local and international accolades. His works have been featured in exhibitions such as Echigo Tsumari Art Triennial in Japan, Land Art Biennial in Mongolia, Shanghai Expo, Kunsthalle Wien in Vienna, NIME at IRCAM- Centre Pompidou in Paris and Art Basel Hong Kong. He is a recipient of Asian Cultural Council grant. The artist is also the recipient of numerous number of grants and awards, including the Asia Cultural Council Grant 2013, Hong Kong Contemporary Art Biennial Awards 2009, Hong Kong Young Design Talent in 2008, the Hong Kong Independent Short Film & Video Gold Medal Awards 2007, the Canada Council for the Arts – Travel Grants to Media Artists 2006, and the InterAccess Visual Arts Award 2003. He was also artist-in- residence at Cité internationale des arts in Paris in 2010. He is currently a lecturer at the Master of Visual Art Programme in the Hong Kong Baptist University. Kingsley Ng Currently lives and works in Hong Kong www.kingsleyng.com Solo Exhibitions 2014 To the Moon, Jordan Valley Park, Hong Kong Luna Park, Oil Street Art Space, Hong Kong 2013 Études, Osage Hong Kong, Hong Kong 2011 Solo exhibition by Kingsley Ng, Osage Soho, Hong Kong Selected Group Exhibitions 2014 Digital Life 2014 - PLAY | Romaeuropa, La Pelanda - MACRO Testaccio, Rome, Italy Zoo as Metaphor, Oil Street Art Space, Hong Kong Mountains and Above, Goethe-Gallery, Goethe-Institut Hongkong, Hong Kong Moving Image New York, New York, USA Crossroads · Another Dimension, Hong Kong City Hall, Hong Kong Art Taipei, Taipei, Taiwan 2013 Crossroads · Another Dimension, He Xiangning Art Museum, Shenzhen, China; Macao Museum of Art, Macau; Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts, Kaohsiung, Taiwan Conceptual Walk Through, Espace Louis Vuitton Hong Kong Framed: Ai Weowei and Hong Kong Artists, Duddell's, Hong Kong I Think It Rains: Quadrilogy 2, Burger Collection, Cattle Depot Artist Village, Hong Kong Hong Kong Eye, ArtisTree, Hong Kong, Art Basel Hong Kong, Hong Kong 4 Imminent Domain: Designing the Life of Tomorrow, Asia Society, Hong Kong 2012 3rd Art and Science International Exhibition and Symposium, China Science and Technology Museum, Beijing, China Guangzhou Triennial, Guangdong Museum of Art, Guangzhou, China art: gwangju:12, Gwangju, South Korea 2nd Land Art Biennial, Ikh Gazriin Chuluu, Gobi Desert; National Gallery of Mongolia, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia 2011 White Walls Have Ears, RRS Creative Media Centre, Hong Kong Dare to Change, Beijing Design Week, 798 Art Zone, Beijing, China ARTHK11, Hong Kong See the Light, Espace Louis Vuitton Hong Kong 2010 Legacy and Creations – Art vs Art, a HKSAR programme for Expo 2010 Shanghai, Museum of Contemporary Art, Shanghai, China Hong Kong: Creative Ecologies - A better July, a HKSAR programme for Expo 2010 Shanghai, The Bridge 8 Phase III, Shanghai, China This is Hong Kong: 15 Video Artists, Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna, Austria Hong Kong Contemporary Art Biennial Awards 2009, Hong Kong Museum of Art, Hong Kong 2009 (last) intervention, Osage Kwun Tong, Hong Kong Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennial, Tsunan, Niigata, Japan LOOP Video Art, Casa Asia, Barcelona, Spain HK Sound Station, Para/Site Art Space, Hong Kong 2008 Site:Seeing, Osage Kwun Tong, Hong Kong HKAC 30th Anniversary Exhibition, Hong Kong Arts Centre, Hong Kong Crosscurrents: New Media Art, Osage Singapore, Singapore Digitalogue, Hong Kong Museum of Art, Hong Kong 2007 Territoire de l'Image, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Tourcoing, France Les Nuits Electroniques de l'Ososphère, La Laiterie, Strasbourg, France 2006 City Sonic - International Sound Arts Festival, Les Abattoirs, Mons, Belgium NIME - IRCAM, Centre Pompidou, Paris, France My Secret Life, Le Tripostal, Lille, France Homage to Tadao Ando, Fabrica Research Centre, Treviso, Italy 2005 Casting Stories, Le Fresnoy - Studio national des arts contemporains, Tourcoing, France 5 2004 Jamais Vu, Le Fresnoy - Studio national des arts contemporains, Tourcoing, France Community Art Project, City of Tourcoing & Roubaix, France 2003 (e)merge/(dis)separate, InterAccess Electronic Media Arts Centre, Toronto, Canada Notable Awards 2013 Best Artist (Media Arts), Hong Kong Arts Development Awards Asian Cultural Council (ACC) fellowship grant, New York, US 2010 Cité Internationale des Arts Residency, Paris, France 2009 Hong Kong Contemporary Art Biennial Awards, Hong Kong Museum of Art 2008 Hong Kong Young Design Talent, Hong Kong Design Centre 2007 IFVA Single Screen Media Gold Award, Hong Kong Art Centre 2003 InterAccess Visual Arts Award, InterAccess Electronic Media Arts Centre, Toronto, Canada Notable Collections 2014 Galaxy Express - collected by DSL Collection Record: Light from +22° 16′ 14″