Knowless (2024-25)
Knowless
A three-stage curatorial project on perception, transformation, and drifting between realities
Knowless is a curatorial project that I co-curated with GayBird under the Machine & Art NOW (M&AN) initiative. M&AN has been an important platform supporting interdisciplinary dialogue between art, technology, and experimental media practices. Within this context, Knowless was conceived as a multi-stage exploration of perception, reality, and transformation inspired by the philosophical writings of Zhuangzi.
The project unfolds across three stages—The Query, The Metamorphosis, and Dreamlike Dream. Each stage approaches the question of knowledge from a different perspective: inquiry, transformation, and ultimately release. Rather than presenting a fixed interpretation of philosophical ideas, the project invites artists and audiences to experience the shifting boundaries between reality and illusion, between the tangible and the virtual, and between the human body and technological systems.
My role within the project involved developing the conceptual framework that connects the three stages, shaping the curatorial structure of the exhibitions, and contributing my own sound work Infinite Gradient, a fixed media audio composition exploring sonic transformation between natural and synthetic sound.
Stage 1: The Query —
Drifting Between Dreams and Reality
The first stage of the project, The Query, begins with questioning. Inspired by Zhuangzi’s “On the Equality of Things” , this stage explores how reality and illusion coexist in our daily lives.
The question of what constitutes “reality” is no longer confined to ancient philosophical inquiry. In the contemporary world, technological and media developments constantly blur the distinction between the real and the virtual. Our daily experiences move between physical environments and digitally mediated spaces: web platforms, software environments, virtual reality worlds, and algorithmically generated images. Media art often operates precisely within this threshold where the boundaries between human perception, machine systems, and material reality become unstable.
For this first stage, GayBird and I initiated a dialogue with visual artist Li Chi-Tak through fourteen curatorial questions derived from Zhuangzi’s philosophical reflections. These questions served as a conceptual bridge between classical philosophy and contemporary artistic practice. Rather than providing answers, the questions opened a space for interpretation and reflection, emphasising the fluidity of perspective central to Zhuangzi’s thinking.
Li Chi-Tak responded to these questions through a series of drawings created using the most fundamental artistic tools—paper and pen. These works translated abstract philosophical ideas into visual form, offering a contemplative entry point into the project’s conceptual framework. The drawings were presented alongside philosophical excerpts and the curatorial questions themselves, forming a layered dialogue between text, image, and thought.
In this stage, the exhibition space functioned as a site of philosophical inquiry. The artworks invited viewers to reconsider their assumptions about truth, perception, and interpretation. By placing visual responses to philosophical questions at the centre of the exhibition, The Query established the conceptual foundation for the entire Knowless project, providing inspiration for the multimedia works that would develop in the subsequent stages.
Stage 2: The Metamorphosis—
Transformation and Embodiment
While the first stage focused on inquiry through text and drawing, the second stage, The Metamorphosis, shifted toward transformation and embodiment.
Zhuangzi’s philosophy frequently describes transformation as an essential property of existence. The famous allegories of the giant fish transforming into a bird, or Zhuang Zhou dreaming he is a butterfly, illustrate a worldview in which boundaries between states of being are fluid. Life and death, self and other, reality and illusion are not fixed oppositions but phases within an ongoing process of change.
In contemporary media art, similar transformations occur through technological systems. Invisible physiological signals—breath, heartbeat, brainwaves, eye movements—can be captured, translated into data, and transformed into dynamic visual and sonic environments. These processes reveal how the human body itself becomes part of a hybrid system involving both biological and computational elements.
Building on the text-based and visual exploration of Stage 1, The Metamorphosis transformed Li Chi-Tak’s drawings into time-based media, extending the philosophical dialogue into moving images, sound, and interactive systems. Static images evolved into dynamic visual experiments that unfolded in time and space. Viewers were no longer passive observers but participants whose bodily data could influence the behaviour of the artworks.
Through bio-sensing technologies and interactive systems, subtle physiological signals were translated into real-time visual outputs. The boundary between body and machine became a site of artistic exploration. In this environment, the virtual was no longer intangible and the real was no longer static. Instead, both existed in continuous transformation.​
​Within this stage I presented Infinite Gradient, a thirty-minute fixed media audio work exploring transformation within the sonic domain.
Infinite Gradient investigates the boundary between recorded environmental sound and synthesized audio. Using techniques such as spectral morphing and granular synthesis, the frequency content of natural recordings is gradually blended with digitally generated material. The work constructs a continuous sonic transition in which the listener becomes increasingly unable to distinguish between natural and synthetic sources.
Rather than presenting two separate sound worlds, the composition creates a seamless gradient between them. The piece gradually dissolves the perceptual boundary between recorded nature and algorithmic synthesis, forming a unified soundscape that challenges the listener’s assumptions about authenticity and technological mediation.
In the context of The Metamorphosis, the work functioned as a sonic metaphor for transformation. Just as visual images and physiological data were being translated into dynamic media systems, Infinite Gradient explored how sound itself could undergo continuous metamorphosis.
Stage 3: Dreamlike Dream—
Letting go, the World Opens
The final stage, Dreamlike Dream, moves beyond inquiry and transformation toward a state of openness and release.
Life constantly rewrites itself through fragments of information—news, digital messages, street conversations, and social media interactions. What once appeared stable gradually shifts as our understanding evolves. Zhuangzi reminds us that the world has never possessed a fixed form; it is through accepting this ongoing transformation that we may find calm within uncertainty.
Dreamlike Dream invites audiences to wander between dream and waking, guided by shifting light, shadow, sound, and spatial interventions. Mirrors, silhouettes, and atmospheric imagery dissolve the boundaries between self and environment. Oppositions such as light and darkness, reality and illusion, become rhythmic cycles rather than fixed contrasts.
In this stage, the exhibition space itself becomes an immersive environment. Visitors experience a drifting state of perception in which distinctions between observer and artwork soften. The philosophical allegory of Zhuangzi dreaming he was a butterfly becomes a metaphor for this experience: when drifting freely between identities and perspectives, the need to determine what is real or unreal fades.
The exhibition thus becomes not only a spatial installation but also a philosophical journey. It invites viewers to release rigid interpretations and binary thinking. In letting go of these constraints, dreams cease to be burdens that must be realised and instead become openings toward freedom.
Curatorial Perspective
Through these three stages, Knowless explores how knowledge, perception, and identity shift across philosophical reflection, artistic practice, and technological experimentation.
As co-curator, my intention was to create a project that connects ancient philosophical thought with contemporary media art practices. By structuring the project as a progression from questioning to transformation and finally to drifting openness, Knowless invites audiences to reconsider how we understand the world and our place within it.
Rather than seeking definitive answers, the project embraces uncertainty as a productive space for artistic and philosophical exploration. In doing so, Knowless reflects the spirit of Zhuangzi’s thought: that freedom may emerge not from certainty, but from the willingness to move fluidly between states of knowing and not knowing.