DigiRadiance

Date & Time

17 Feb - 16 Mar, 2023 11am-7pm (Last entry: 6:30pm)

Location

F Hall Studio

Price

Free of charge

General

A digital interpretation of the architecture and history of Victoria Gaol

Artists: Vvzela Kook & Ng Tsz Kwan

Curator: Ying Kwok
Assistant Curator: Jims Lam

DigiRadiance is a brand-new heritage digital programme that transforms the F Hall Studio into an immersive project space. Our first show uses the radial plan prison of Victoria Gaol as a point of departure to revisit Tai Kwun’s prison history and its significance.

Victoria Gaol started as a small brick building in 1841 and was the first prison built in Hong Kong. It expanded over the years and in 1862 a larger three-storey prison was built. Designed with the contemporary “radial plan” design, it signaled a major change to the concept of imprisonment and prison operations. Over the years, many parts of the building were destroyed and demolished, leaving only one of the five original wings intact today. The remaining section has been renamed to D Hall. As the oldest building in this compound, it stands as an important historical relic carrying traces of the early formation of law and order in the city and forms an important component of the Tai Kwun Heritage site.

DigiRadiance consists of two parts: a 30-minute immersive animated show presented at F Hall Studio and five Augmented Reality (AR) checkpoints across the Prison Yard and D Hall. The animated show is a newly commissioned work created by the artists Vvzela Kook and Ng Tsz Kwan. By studying the ideology behind the radial plan prison at Victoria Gaol, they went on a journey to explore, in depth, the concept of imprisonment and its relationship to architectural design, materiality, spatial configuration, and disciplinary routine. The video consists of three core scenes that examine the experience of imprisonment and its extended implications on societal discourses such as discipline and punishment.

The second part utilises AR technology to take you on a physical journey that explores the history of Tai Kwun’s prison on site. With personal mobile devices, visitors will be led by five digital checkpoints to navigate around Tai Kwun and learn more about its prison spaces.

Through reimagining and reinterpreting our historical buildings in a digital context, we hope to bring our visitors back in time, not only to visualise how our buildings have evolved over time, but also to learn and understand how and why these buildings were designed and built in this fashion. With these learning tools, we hope visitors can develop a deeper relationship with our historical site, and continue to value and treasure heritage sites such as Tai Kwun.

The animated show starts on the hour and half past every hour between 11am and 7pm. Each show has a capacity of 30 people.


DigiRadiance–Artist Sharing

Join artists Vvzela Kook and Ng Tsz Kwan as Tai Kwun hosts an artist sharing session for DigiRadiance audiences on 7 March 2023. Together, the artists will delve into the making of DigiRadiance, the depths and challenges of creating cybernetic journeys, and much more.

The session is now FULL.


Exhibition Views

Exhibition view at DigiRadiance
Exhibition view at DigiRadiance
Exhibition view at DigiRadiance

 Exhibition view at DigiRadiance
Exhibition view at DigiRadiance
Exhibition view at DigiRadiance
Augmented Reality checkpoint, Prison Yard
Augmented Reality checkpoint, D Hall


Artist Bio

Vvzela Kook

A new media artist, Vvzela Kook’s work places special emphasis on audiovisual mediums, including performance, theatre, computer graphics, and drawing. Combining technology with artistic practices, Kook’s videos reproduce and convert urban cityscapes into integrated virtual experiences, offering audiences a cybernetic journey. Her works' compressed textures appeal to levels of people’s perception of sensuality, further untapping the potential of video as a creative medium. By mixing delicate drawings, 3D prints, and video game optics in her videos, Kook shows a wide range of media and materials that translate her research-based projects into visual creations.

Ng Tsz Kwan

Ng Tsz Kwan is a multimedia artist and designer who also serves as the Co-founder and Executive Creative Director of yucolab. After earning degrees from both the Chinese University of Hong Kong and Central Saint Martin's College of Art in London in 2000, Kwan committed his efforts to fusing new media technology with art. He has since worked with commercial exhibitions, museums, and other venues. His ongoing research into media technology and spatial notions explores how art can affect the way people perceive the world.