Award-winning media artist and electronic music composer Choi Sai-ho is inviting audiences on a sensory journey that spans from volcanic lava flows 100 million years ago to the modern skyline of Kowloon East today, all through an immersive audio-visual adventure.
Renowned for drawing inspiration from urban landscapes, data visualization, and anime, the local artist is presenting his multimedia concert — Live．Time．Place — at the East Kowloon Cultural Centre (EKCC), accompanied by his parallel art installation — Time．Place．Show.
Through four-sided projections and 22 different electronic tracks, Choi recreates the lava flows of Hong Kong's ancient volcanoes, instantaneous flashes of lightning, and rumbling thunder, depicting the dramatic transformations of nature and the city within the same geographical space.
The one-hour set opens with Choi’s signature work, Power. Blazing red lines explode across multi-panel projection walls in perfect time with the beats, flooding the stage with a raw, sensory-overloading impact.
Choi noted that eight of the tracks featured were specifically created for the concert, including Windows of Art. This piece transforms the EKCC into a living 3D model, guiding the audience through the building's architecture from impossible angles and blurring the line between the real and the virtual.
Sharing his creative process for the concert, Choi said the most important element is the planning of the set, particularly how to weave a narrative and convey its core concept.
Nature-sampled sounds are another highlight of his electronic music. For example, one of the tracks, Forest Techno, blends the sounds of wind and waterfalls that were recorded by the artist himself.
A strong focus on the daily life and landscape of Hong Kong has always been at the center of Choi's artistic approach, as he draws inspiration from everything that resonates with him through the lens of city life.
"When it comes to Hong Kong—the place where I was born and raised—sometimes when I look at the natural scenery, I often find myself imagining what the city was really like many years ago," he said.
Choi explained that this project gave him the opportunity to reuse footage he had shot in the past. One of the concert tracks, Tree, originated when he was browsing a bookstore and came across a book about 100 native tree species in Hong Kong.
The concept was later fully realized through pictures he captured while walking through Victoria Park in 2018. After typhoons and lightning had split several trees open, leaving timber scattered across the park, Choi noticed their striking wood grain. He took photos of the wood, capturing visuals that finally came to life in the video, complementing the music.
With this highly immersive approach, Choi hopes his concert and exhibition create a space and environment for audiences to truly experience the art. "When the audience steps inside, they become the main character in the movie," he said. "What they experience, including the images they see and the sounds they hear, becomes their own deeply personal feeling."
The first Live．Time．Place concert was held on June 6, with upcoming performances scheduled for June 19 and June 20 at 8pm. Meanwhile, the Time．Place．Show media art installation will run until June 23 with free admission.
Choi has garnered multiple accolades since graduating with a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Media from the City University of Hong Kong in 2008. His recent works include a collaborative public art installation with streetsignhk, Ne-on-Ne-on@Sham Shui Po, which won the Merit Award (Digital & Motion Design) at the DFA Design for Asia Awards 2025 and the GDA Winner title at the Global Design Awards 2025 (Digital Design).
