The Works：AI & arts, Chan Ka-kiu@de Sarthe & in the studio: Harmonicist CY Leo

The term AI or artificial intelligence was coined in 1950 when mathematician and computer scientist Alan Turing published his work “Computer Machinery and Intelligence”. It referred to a process that used computer systems to analyse data and make predictions. Then came generative AI or AGI, in which the computer system goes a step further by actually creating new data. The technology, once confined to laboratories and accessed by a few, has now entered the mainstream, and is beginning to influence many areas of our lives. The public release of Microsoft’s OpenAI chatbot ChatGPT last November spearheaded the race for wider social application of the technology.

Like Chris Cheung and Victor Wong, Chan Ka-kiu has also been working with AI, in her case for a recently completed two-month artist residency at the de Sarthe gallery. For those two months, Chan used the 10,000 square foot space, which was open to the public during gallery hours, as a studio to create new works. You can see the works produced during that residency in a three-week exhibition that opened on 9th September.

Since his 2018 music production and album project “Lost in Time” and the release of his first original instrumental album “Angel and Demon” in 2020, harmonicist CY Leo has been focusing on composition, arranging, and creating original sounds for the harmonica. He's spent the past two years studying jazz performance in a Masters programme at New York University. Now he's back in Hong Kong. He's planning a concert in October to showcase a whole new set of original compositions.