SIGHT AND SITE

Microwave have commissioned new works by contemporary Hong Kong artists to be shown in and around the city. They are temporary by their very nature like a neon sign, a SogoVision screening or a poster on the MTR.

Although Sight and Site sound the same, we have chosen to use the words sight – looking, and site – a place, to show the relationship between seeing and space, the placement and meaning of a work of art outside of the usual gallery space.

Traditionally we imagine video as viewed through a black box, the television screen or monitor, and when we talk of video art it assumes that it is solely for the gallery, or private screening. We want this years Microwave festival to present work that is none-gallery based but also to challenge our idea of what is art and what is public space.

A site may appear as public spaces but they are also owned or leased sites either by the authorities or by corporations. We also cannot just do whatever we want in these spaces, there are regulations and fines for things like not smoking, no loitering or no walking on the grass even in a park.

The site works created for the Microwave Festival have had to gain permission, as they are situated at very busy interchanges within the city, but the work is the artists and for a brief time they claim the space as their own. The work is also temporary and some last only a few minutes, but the objective is to intervene in the space to create a dialogue between audiences and art.