Since the mid-20th century, digital technology has been a source of both fear and fascination among artists across the world. As a tool and a subject in its own right, technology not only promises greater ease in artistic production and social communication, but also expands the conditions under which human creativity and innovation flourish. Yet, with the rise of artificial intelligence and machine automation, technology simultaneously threatens to render physical and intellectual labour obsolete by unsettling the foundations of purpose and agency our society has long built around human skill. As technological infrastructure becomes more deeply embedded in everyday life, it grows ever more difficult to reconcile the desire for societal progress with the resistance towards machine domination. Perhaps this tension points to a more pertinent question: rather than fixating on our relationship with machines, should we not redirect our focus to how we can relate to one another more meaningfully in an increasingly digitised world?

Taking the complexity of the technological age as its context, Artificial Flavour (2026) curated by Shan Wong and Richard Bakes explored “the cyborg condition in our tech-saturated era,” particularly how human creativity intersects and fuses with artificial systems such as algorithms, synthetics, and urban designs. Organised by the Consulate General of Czechia in Hong Kong, the exhibition brought together the works of nine artists at 101080 HHH, a newly opened gallery in Sheung Wan, for its inaugural showcase during Art March. The exhibition title evoked the mutual desire of humans and machines to get a “taste” for each other’s way of perceiving and acquiring information about the physical and virtual world. While Czechia and Hong Kong represented two distinct cultural and geographical contexts, the participating artists shared an interest in some of the most pressing and enduring issues surrounding digital technology today. Entangled in the same web of personal and impersonal connections, the artists were compelled to individually and collectively interrogate the ethics, consequences, and possibilities of technological integration in contemporary life.

For Ruba Al-Sweel and Eason Tsang Ka Wai, the present-day collapse of geographical distance and the technological displacement of human connection are inseparable from the ever-expanding networks of global supply chains and logistics. In the docufiction Plastic Pilgrims (2025), Al-Sweel traces the cross-border journey of a second-hand phone from the Feiyang Times building in Shenzhen, where stolen iPhones from Europe and the US are reportedly sold to new customers. Through a collation of surveillance footage, body cam recordings, and video calls, the work charts the hidden networks of global economies and the accelerated, depersonalised forms of human connectivity they sustain through transnational trade. Echoing Al-Sweel’s thematic preoccupations, Tsang takes a more oblique approach in Tape (2026) by zeroing in on strips of packing tape torn from shipping boxes and containers. With its adhesive traces reminiscent of latent images on a film roll, the tape is seen as a material archive of human memory and connection—something deeply poignant yet emblematic of the standardised process of logistical transit in which personal items are abstracted into mere tracking digits and coordinates on a digital map.

Moving beyond the relatively detached vantage point of global connectivity, artists such as Liao Jiaming and Lenka Bakes turn instead to the more intimate territories of one’s direct relationship with the self and others. In Open Yourselves (Ourselves) (2024), Liao stitches together old white t-shirts he has worn and accumulated over the years, on top of which can be found an AI-generated image depicting a grotesque tangle of human torsos and limbs, each indistinguishable from the other. The image is inspired by the profile pictures the artist has encountered on dating apps for homosexual men, which epitomise a digital culture of widening emotional estrangement even as it is fuelled by the profound desire to be seen, to feel seen, and the agonising longing for intimacy. For Bakes, the construct of identity is explored in parallel to discussions surrounding human intervention in nature through genetic modification and the existence of anomalous life forms. Similarly presented on a piece of hanging textile, Adaptus SIX (Starry Fish) (2026) shows a woman’s face morphing into the skin of a starfish strawberry—a transformation of the organic body that exemplifies the fluidity of one’s physical identity as the boundary between human and non-human dissolves.

Other examples include a return to history and mythology as a means of reconciling our relationship with present-day society, though the artists express divergent attitudes towards the role technology plays in that process. Unconnected Broadband (2026) by Foreseen Agency revisits the staircases ascending to Victoria Peak, an exclusive European enclave during the British colonial era that functioned as both a physical and symbolic segregation of the Chinese population living below. Having digitally scanned the surviving staircases in the city, the artist duo creates a video game, whose multiple screens are mounted on a metal ladder, in which players are invited to traverse the architectural remnants of racial and class exclusion so as to confront the spatial hierarchies that colonial rule inscribed upon the urban landscape. Meanwhile, Miroslava Večeřová presents Arietis Sisters and the Sun (2024), a film adaptation of a site-specific performance made in collaboration with Lucie Kordačová, which articulates and enacts ecofeminist thinking around the natural landscape of Saint Leonards-on-Sea. Drawing from mythological tales across diverse cultures, the work meditates on migration and renewal as a pathway to reconnect with a spiritual past, deliberately in the absence of technological mediation.

In addition to the exhibition itself, the curatorial project featured a series of panel discussions which brought together curators, gallerists, artists, and organisers from Czechia and Hong Kong to engage in cross-disciplinary dialogue. Where the exhibition sought to promote cultural exchange through curatorial collaboration and artistic conversation, the panels extended this ambition by fostering a sense of professional community for those who share a commitment to interrogating human connection in a digitised era. It was especially enlightening to learn about how practitioners across the field have employed technology as a tool and subject of inquiry in advancing their research and practice within contemporary art. From the artist-led, community-oriented studio model adopted by MetaObjects to explore the intersection of art, technology, and architecture, to Kunsthalle Praha’s transformation of the former Zenger Transformer Substation into a dynamic cultural space for multidisciplinary engagements, attendees gained a comparative glimpse into how practitioners from different parts of the world embrace the possibilities of technology within their local and cultural contexts. The series further illuminated the interdependencies across sectors of the contemporary art world by affirming the role of these connections in sustaining and amplifying the cultural, intellectual, and economic value of art in our society.

During the exhibition period, I was fortunate to be invited by co-curator Shan to moderate the panel Post Ecosystem: Anthropogenic Interference featuring artists Lo Lai Lai Natalie and Ryuta Aoki. Lo is known for her dual identity as a farmer and artist in Hong Kong who works primarily with moving image to reflect on her practice of farming and the deep interconnectedness of living species, while Aoki, an engineer turned artist, integrates art and science to reveal the intricate and often invisible relationships between humans and the natural world. After the panel, both artists expressed genuine admiration for each other’s work and, despite their differing artistic approaches, discovered a mutual passion for cross-disciplinary collaboration and community building. Therein lies the beauty of an exhibition project such as this one. It endeavoured to unite people from diverse backgrounds who were equally earnest in exchanging their knowledge and insights drawn from years of experimentation and practice. Ultimately, it is through our shared experience of navigating technology that we come to understand and connect with one another in a more profound way.