Can you imagine immersing yourself in a Damien Hirst's butterfly painting while listening to Butterfly Lover’s Violin Concerto, and enjoying folk dance of the Yao people in a Guangxi village while sitting in a music hall ?
This is the “East West Encounters” concert experience offered by the Hong Kong Baptist University, which stimulates your senses with art tech driven by artificial intelligent technology. While the images change according to the sound and people's movement, that means you will have a different immersive experience when you join the concert again.
In less than an hour, the baton of HKBU associate vice-president Johnny Poon guides you to travel from the west to the east and from the past to the present. The concert started with two pieces inspired by the story of the Chinese princess Turandot, who has been an inspiration of many western music repertoire. The immersive art background is similar to light penetrating through Jackson Pollock's abstract paintings while sometimes it is like floating on a calm canal under a moonlight according to the music mood.
After studying the Yao's indigenous folk music and dance in Guangxi last month, the team used the footage and AI-generated content to recast an illusive visuals and immersive soundscape while performing the Chinese instrumental compositions Dance of the Yao People.
Probably no music lovers could resist the rendition of renowned violinist Yao Jue’s Butterfly Lover’s Violin Concerto. Audience was engulfed with not only the music but the butterfly motif in various forms, sometimes against Chinese landscape paintings and sometimes in the form of a kaleidoscope.
After a series of east-west collisions, the audience was brought back home with the piece Lion Hill Symphonic Metamorphosis, a fusion of the university anthem and Below the Lion Rock, composed by alumnus Ronald Fu. Accompanying the music are collages of images featuring various corners of the campus.
Chinese landscape painting as one of the immersive experiences in the concert. From left: Yao Jue, Johnny Poon, HKBU Academy of Music associate professor of practice Taurin Barrera
