Read More
There is no escaping the digital world, but its emotional possibilities remain surprisingly unsettled territory. Can code convey warmth, memory or connection? That was the question behind Digital Emotions – From Electric Pulse to Human Touch, the recent exhibition at DX design hub in Sham Shui Po.
ADVERTISEMENT
SCROLL TO CONTINUE WITH CONTENT
Co-curated by Czech artist Pavel Mrkus and Hong Kong's Man Tin, the show brought together 15 contemporary digital artists and designers from both locations.
Its premise was straightforward but worthwhile: algorithms, pixels and data streams may be an international creative language, but artists can still use them to explore identity, distance and the need to connect.
Digital Emotions avoided treating technology as a spectacle for its own sake. Rather than asking visitors to marvel at screens, circuits or technical effects, it used them as a channel into something more human.
Through interactive installations, video works and multisensory pieces, the exhibition created spaces where visitors became part of the experience rather than passive observers.
The setting reinforced that idea. As a publicly funded space operated by the Hong Kong Design Centre, DX design hub is located in a district with a long history of textiles, electronics, repair shops, and small businesses. So in that context, the exhibition's questions about technology and human connection felt grounded. It connected digital experimentation with a neighborhood long defined by craft, resourcefulness and ingenuity.
Co-presented with the Consulate General of the Czech Republic in Hong Kong and Studio TIO, the exhibition was supported by five public talks, workshops, and live performances, bringing together Hong Kong and Czech artists, curators, and institutions to discuss how data, algorithms, and digital media are reshaping contemporary life.
The Hong Kong-Czech collaboration also gave the show wider relevance.
Although the artists came from different continents, they grappled with similar questions about life online: how digital networks can bring people together while also making loneliness and distance feel more acute.
The exhibition, which ran from mid-June and closed on Monday, made a persuasive case for digital art as more than a technical spectacle, asking what remains human in a mediated world: attention, memory, empathy and the search for genuine connection.
Bernard Charnwut Chan is the chairman of the West Kowloon Cultural District
