Art Basel Hong Kong 2025, March 29

What are artists learning from tech and AI today?

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Shu Lea Cheang, artist, Paris Lawrence Lek, artist, London Moderator: Tishan Hsu, artist, New York 
Technology is now part of the artist’s toolkit, and many practitioners are building on an art history defined by pioneers like Tishan Hsu and Shu Lea Cheang, whose engagement with tech and its implications bridge the 20th and 21st centuries. Here, Cheang and Hsu join Lawrence Lek, whose immersive and often interactive work draws on gaming technology, to consider what tech and AI has taught them. 
Shu Lea Cheang is an artist and filmmaker who engages in genre-bending gender hacking art practices. She was awarded an LG Guggenheim Art and Technology Award in 2024 and is noted for her prescient exploration of emerging technologies and their broader societal implications. In early 2025, she will present the theatre performance ‘Hagay Dreaming’ at Tate Modern and the exhibition ‘KI$$ KI$$’ at Haus der Kunst in Munich.
London-based artist Lawrence Lek unites filmmaking, video games, and soundscapes in a singular cinematic universe. He is known for advancing the concept of Sinofuturism with immersive installations that explore spiritual themes through the lens of science fiction. Featuring a recurring cast of wandering characters, his works are noted for their dreamlike narratives, evocative imagery, and preoccupation with technology and memory. He was named one of Time’s 100 most influential people in AI. 
Born in Boston, Massachusetts, Tishan Hsu received his BSAD and MArch from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Hsu’s work attempts to convey the changing cognitive and physical effects of an embodied technology. Hsu has held solo exhibitions at institutions including Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto(2024); Musée d'Art Moderne et Contemporain, Geneva (2024); Secession, Vienna (2023); SculptureCenter, New York (2020); Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2020). He has participated in major international group exhibitions and biennials including the 59th Venice Biennale (2022); Carnegie International (2022); 13th Gwangju Biennale (2021). 

The Art Basel Hong Kong 2025 Conversations program is curated by Stephanie Bailey.

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