HBG: Humans, Beasts & Ghosts (人.獸.鬼)
By Yuk Yiu Ip | Professional (International category)
“I don’t start with a clear idea. I often just start experimenting, playing, collecting and making different smaller things. Usually the artistic ideas will start to emerge from the little things that I made or collect. At that point, I start to respond to these ideas and begin to build on them. If I am lucky, something interesting might come out of it. If not, I restart the whole process again. I personally see the role of the artist as a mediator or facilitator between the world and the viewers.”
~ Ip Yuk-Yiu
Inspired by the book of the Chinese literary master Qian Zhongshu, HBG is an experimental video game, a playable life simulator in which the player, assuming the role of God, facilitates the everyday being of the different worlds inhabited by humans, beasts and ghosts. The player can choose to act as an interventionist god, creating and destroying whimsically, or simply watching the worlds unfold with minimal or no interference. A literary adaptation in a digital and playable form, HBG is a real-time machinima and an allegorical play about human existence, its dilemma and other catastrophes.
Location
ADM Gallery 1
About the Artist
Ip Yuk-Yiu is an experimental filmmaker, media artist, art educator and independent curator. His works, ranging from experimental films, live performances, media installations to video games, have been showcased extensively at major international venues and festivals, including European Media Art Festival, New York Film Festival (views from the avant-garde), the Image Festival, FILE Festival, VideoBrasil, Transmediale, NTT InterCommunication Center [ICC] and WRO media art Bienniale. He is the founder of the art.ware project, an independent curatorial initiative focusing on the promotion of new media art in Hong Kong. IP has over fifteen years of curatorial experience in film, video and media art. Currently he is Associate Professor at the School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong. His recent works explore hybrid creative forms that are informed by cinema, video games and contemporary media art practices.