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Sound Design for VR experience | Ars Electronica

Location: JKU MED CAMPUS (MED Campus I) Krankenhausstraße 5, 4020 Linz

Opening time: 4-7/9/2024 10:00-19:00 8/9/2024 10:00-18:00

Info: Ars Electronica 2024 (link)

This project was developed in the context of a hybrid residency at V2_ Lab for the Unstable Media in Rotterdam. Seven artists were invited to jointly explore contemporary topics such as Virtual, Augmented and Mixed Reality, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Consciousness, Data Privacy and Surveillance, Simulation Theory, Existential Risk and Future of Humanity as they are raised in the 1964 SciFi-novel Simulacron-3. The group reflected on the creation of XR experiences with a strong creative and artistic component to create a collective experience that, in its core, considers the concepts of human interaction, group dynamics and empathy. The outcome of the residency, which utilized open source tools and offered guidance from experts, is Department of Interfaced Dimensions (D.I.D). Work Title: Department of Interfaced Dimensions

Collaboration with: Annika Boll (DE), Eirini Lampiri (GR), Gökay Atabek (TR), Lam Lai (HK), Merve Sahin (TR), Mihai Gui (RO), Silvana Callegari (CO)

You are invited to step into a world of play, interactivity and uncertainty. Observe, follow or collaborate with your fellow participants to navigate your way through alternative realities. Interchange roles and actively engage in a play of surveillance and manipulation.

Department of Interfaced Dimensions (D.I.D) is an interactive, mixed reality experience that combines game mechanics with virtual worlds and the materiality of kinetic props to explore themes of identity, agency and control.

(photo Credit: JKU Linz / Photographer: Andreas Röbl)

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Sounds for Theater | ANGEL by Nele Vereecken

New Performance date: 18 March 2024 Location: CC Kunst en Cultuur Sint-Pieters-Woluwe

Details: Nele Vereecken (link)

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2022

"Macht kommt von machen, etwas tun können" - Angela Merkel

Reverend’s daughter, Angela Kasner grew up in East Germany. Her aunt from West Germany often sent presents such as Levi’s jeans and a Beatles record. When the wall fell, she decided to let go of her scientific career and enter politics. "Whoever has been so positively surprised once in his life, thinks that a lot is possible", she says. Angela Kasner is a woman who exists.

angel is a performance about a woman who does not yet exist but who uses the same words as the real Angela. It’s a woman who, just like Angela, in her search for more and more possibilities, reaches the top of the world. The performance is a fictional portrait based on real speeches.

In angel we unleash the imagination on an important contemporary political figure. How far can you go in that imagination? When does that imagination become a lie? And when does that lie become a logical reality accepted by everyone? By dreaming the impossible, sometimes half of it becomes true.

performance Mieke Verdin en Nele Vereecken | text Joachim Robbrecht, Nele Vereecken en Mieke Verdin, | decor Sven Roofthooft | sound Lam Lai | light and photos Herman Sorgeloos | technique Wim Bernaers, Jeroen Wuyts en Koen De Saeger | production Kunstenwerkplaats | coproduction AGORA theatre Sankt Vith & KAAP | with thanks to arp, ARSENAAL / LAZARUS, De Brakke Grond, GC Nekkersdal, Felix Ensslin en Katja Dreyer | with the support of the Flemish Community, the Flemish Community Commission, Goethe-Institut Brussels, De Auteurs and Ars Vitha

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8ch Electronics Soundscape with Installation | Exhibition "MAKE & BELIEVE" curated by Orlean Lai

Exhibition Date: 12-28 January, 2024 Location: Tai Kwun, central, Hong Kong Music Performance Date: 12, 13, 20 January 2024 Details: No Discipline Limited (Link) Tai Kwun (Link) //

a performative exhibition of no magic - "MAKE & BELIEVE"

Curator / Producer Orlean Lai

in collaboration with Tung Wing-hong Ng Tsz-kwan Ho Sin-tung Human Wu Lam Lai Lau Ming-hang

The notion of “fiction” and “real” is intertwined within the theatre. No matter how verisimilar the play may seem, the audience may not perceive it as real; vice versa, no matter how illusory and surreal a narrative gets to be, one can still exercise their imagination and be fully immersed in the narrative. Once stepped into the theatrical space, the audience gets to suspend their disbelief and be ready to participate in a collective “act” of fabrication – for one becomes an active spectator, the “comrade” to “conspire” an impossible reality.

Make & Believe harkens to the 2023 theatrical-installation performance We are for real, nonetheless, unfolding its narration in an exhibition space instead of a theatrical space. As the narrative context shifts, the previous distinction between “fictive” and “real” is eradicated, projecting alienated expectations and assumptions from the participating audience. In this regard, the collective experiment constructed in the theatre destructs into an individual experience with a deeper introspective focus. It liberates the audience’s unidirectional visual perspectives from the spectator seats into a scattered, all-around spectacle by allowing them to free roam within the exhibition hall. Are these transformations equipping the audience with an omniscient vision that was absent as a theatre spectator? Leaving the narrative-driven theatrical space, can the audience perceive implicit messages between and outside of the lines of the exhibits?

In Make & Believe, we invite you to join the conspiracy again – in an exhibition hall where the performers are absent. The audience is left to conceive and perceive by engaging their senses, rediscovering the idiosyncratic performative qualities of scenery, installations, lighting and soundscapes, collaging fragments of existence, non-existence, reality, “the truth” and imagination, in turn constructing their perceptual landscapes. Can the myriad of sensual stimulations, inspire one to rely on intuition to perceive and conceive, travelling inward to search for meaning and answers?

In collaboration with Tung Wing-hong (Mechanical Installation), Ng Tsz-kwan (Mechanical Installation), Ho Sin-tung (Text / Painting / Installation), Human Wu (Scenography), Lam Lai (Music / Soundscape) and Lau Ming-hang (Lighting), these multi-disciplinary artists excelling in different mediums collectively interweave a rhapsody of Gesamtkunstwerk (a total work of art) by echoing with one another while preserving each individual’s creative authenticity for the visitors to feast.

During the exhibition period, several curated performances will be presented. A brand-new composition crafted by Lam Lai, brought by three renowned musicians, Nazar Tabachyshyn (accordion), Wilson Chau (French Horn) and Tiffany Au Kai-see (Bassoon), will accompany the soundscape installations to render an illuminating music creation. Creative performers from We are for real, including KT Yau Ka-hei, Anson Chan, Pearlmi Tam and Tung Chung-can, will also be offering a new collaborative performance on-site. Stay tuned for the shows!

We cordially invite you to be mesmerised by the “staged exhibition”, unleashing all your talents and senses to enjoy the meticulously crafted scenography. Come dialogue with the collective creation, challenge yourself and rediscover what are the “real” and “truth” to you.

// Documentation by HKADC:

// Music Performance

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8-ch Sound work for Installation | Sound Forms 2023

Date: 14-15 Nov 2023 Location: Tai Kwun, Central, Hong Kong

Details: Contemporary Musiking (link) //

Through the glass, darkly

Communication is an in between space where two beings enter the risk of being misunderstood. There is a profound truth in the continual effort to find one another.

Through the glass, darkly is a “non-performance” on voice and communication, a single time-intensive event which discusses different positions toward speaking, being silenced, the possibility to find words and to resonate.

The work emerged through reflections on the (im)possibility of language, failure of human voices, disruption of direct utterance, alternative transmission, to form a libretto - manoeuvring the story of “The Diving Bell and The Butterfly”, Monarch butterflies, personal encounters and more - set to a choreography of sound and music.

Through the glass, darkly is made of a cacophony of voices, fleeting sounds, and negative space, wavering between immersive installation and performative sound piece. It is configured as an intimate sonic landscape that unfolds gradually and spatially, representative of one’s psychic conflict with all sorts of emotions prompted by the very act of communication, inviting the audience to search for and invent their own story. It can seem obscure and chaotic, but there is always the possibility for its voices to synchronise and resonate, and create an experience of negotiation or suspension.

A facet of a wider narrative, Through the glass, darkly is the current state of a work in progress.

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Music for Experimental Film | Presence undefined by Lichun Tseng

Japan Screening Date: 28 Oct, 5 Nov 2023 Address: 2 Chome-10-2 Shibuya, Shibuya City, Tokyo 150-0002, Japan Taipei Screening Date: 3-5 Nov 2023

Presence Undefined / 未定義な��存在

Lichun Tseng & Lam Lai / ゾン・リージュン & リン・リー / 15min.

info: https://www.imageforum.co.jp/cinematheque/1068/index.html

Presence Undefined is a compilation of seven miniature films, intended to be played in any sequence at any screening. This work is an artistic experiment aimed at exploring the components of audiovisual, including layer, colour, harmony, tone, tactile, element and space. The project presents a unique opportunity to examine the intersection of these two creative domains and their shared artistic vocabulary, where the convergence of two artistic worlds stimulates delicate encounters of indeterminacy.

The visual images are created on 16mm using a variety of photochemistry experiments and processes, while the sound composition is derived from field recordings and electronic sound sources.

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24-ch Sound work for Theater Project | We are for Real created by Orlean Lai

Performance: 12-16 Oct 2023 Location: Multimedia Theatre, HKICC Lee Shau Kee School of Creativity, Hong Kong

Created by : Orlean Lai In Collaboration With：Ng Tsz-kwan 、Ho Sin-tung、Tung Wing-hong、Lam Lai 、Lau Ming-hang、Trista Ma

Creative Performers：KT Yau Ka-hei、Anson Chan、Pearlmi Tam、Tung Chung-can、Pollux Kwok

an installation performance of make-believe

If I speak the truth in an obviously disguised field, will you believe me?  If I fake it in a ‘fake it till you make it’ space, will you also believe me?

You believe/ you don’t believe/ you sort of believe, and you doubt/ you beg yourself to believe/ you refuse to believe/ you cheat yourself into believing it… Can you really fake it till you make it?

When performers present their own self in a performance, are they role-playing? When a performer perfects an audience-preset/ expected ‘self’, can you distinguish the genuine from the acted? It is said that every illusion on the stage is a copy of reality. Are you sure that the so-called authenticity of existence exists? 

Welcome to the creators’ labyrinth of truth and illusion! Light dims, curtain rises, audience and creators entered into an indescribable and unspecified contract to construct an impossible reality together.

As we depart from the theatre, will the reality become more concrete? Does ‘truth’ only exist as a belief?

Multi-art-discipline mastermind Orlean Lai makes her directorial debut and collaborates with media/ visual artists Ng Tsz-kwan and Tung Wing-hong, composer/ sound artist Lam Lai, lighting designer Lau Ming-hang and costume designer Trista Ma. With stories and paintings created by visual artist Ho Sin-tung, the team appropriates kaleidoscopic and boundless theatre elements, and altogether constructs an inconceivable, magical landscape. Multi-talented and highly unique performers KT Yau Ka-hei, Anson Chan, Pearlmi Tam, Tung Chung-can and Pollux Kwok perform themselves with every means of solution, unleashing spectacle and imagination from viewing and performing!

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Soundscape composition in Exhibition | Ventriloquists’ stone 

Exhibition: 01 Mar–30 Jul / 2023 Location: Oi! 油街實現, 12 Oil street, Hong Kong opening hours: Tue-Sun 12:00 - 18:00 Live Music session: 15 Apr 2023 16:00-18:00

Ventriloquists’ stone by Nadim Abbas

About the Exhibition Ventriloquists’ Stone takes as its cue the ‘Magic Art of the Great Humbug’.  It is an exercise in misdirection and misplacement, a secret in plain view, a crucible of ruin and regeneration, a porous theatre of cohabitation.  It owes as much to the ingenuity of mini-golf courses as it does to classical garden designs.  It equates, with a wilful disregard for our everyday sense of scale, urban building typologies with circuit board components, giant monsters with merry munchkins. (https://vntrlq.info/About)

About the Soundscape composition Between now and the end of April, you'll hear the soundscape version I've tailored for it. Duration approximately 25 minutes. If you can stay inside for a while, you'll notice that sound travels between the 3 spaces in an interesting way.

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Hong Kong Concert | Orchestra with Live electronics

New work - There is no place like Home (Beta)

9 March 2023 (Thursday), 8pm (HKT) Concert Hall, Hong Kong City Hall, Central Details:  Hong Kong Sinfonietta (link)

There is no place like Home (Beta) for Orchestra and Live electronics

What do we think of wishes that may not come true in our lifetime? For example, visiting space. In 1989, twelve years after the start of the mission, NASA’s Voyager 2 flew past the ice giant Neptune on its way out of the solar system. It is the only spacecraft to have visited Neptune up close. Since the mission began, it has explored Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and finally encountered the last of the planets in our solar system, Neptune. When you look at the image taken on the Voyager 2 camera, that beautiful, intense bright blue on its atmosphere makes you wonder what life was like on this 12-year journey. We are told that the empty space is not entirely empty, and that occasionally we might encounter asteroids, especially between Mars and Jupiter where most of this ancient space debris can be found, or comets and other tangible objects such as dust, gas, solar wind and cosmic rays. If we were inside that spacecraft, how often would we have to deal with the potential dangers from outer space? What would the view from the windows of our spacecraft look like when we are far away from the main source of light in the solar system?  How visible would that suffused feeble glimmer from countless distant stars and galaxies be? How many days, weeks or months would it take to travel through the almost vacuum of space before we might encounter another space object? Apparently, we are still not sure how far humans can travel in space, not to mention the possibility of obtaining a licence to pilot a spacecraft. We tend to believe that the imagination is unreal, regardless of the emotions it may bring. The composer took the opportunity to compose her own version of the 12-year journey inspired by the Voyager 2 mission, scrutinising the emotions that emerged from her imagination and summing them up in the title.

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Field Recording works at the Former Koncon | Sonic Portraits ACOUSTIC INTERIORS Release online: https://acousticinteriors.cargo.site/homepage

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the acoustic memory of a building

Curated by NEW EMERGENCES, ACOUSTIC INTERIORS creates sonic portraits of the two buildings between which the Royal Conservatoire is currently transitioning: the old one at Juliana van Stolberglaan 1, a building full of stories, and the brand new Amare, an almost empty building at Spuiplein 150.

Which sounds in the old busy building would you like to preserve? Which sounds from Amare would you like to capture before it gets busy there? And after the old building has been abandoned, which spaces would you like to revisit?  The ACOUSTIC INTERIORS project presentation took place in 2022. The final presentation included a digital release, an installation and a website.

BEA 5 (former analog studio) 3'09"

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BEA 6 (former studio for live electronics) 2'56"

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BEA 7 (former studio for wave field) 3'10"

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staircase (alongside the Beatrixlaan from the ground floor to the first floor) 3'00"

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h/AI | human/Artificial Intelligence

Music-theater performance

31 Aug 2022 (Veenproef), Scheltema Leiden 13 Sept 2022 (premiere), Stadsgehoorzaal Leiden 6 Oct 2022, Korzo Den Haag 11 Nov 2022, Musis & Stadstheater Arnhem 19 & 20 Nov 2022, Frascati Amsterdam Details: Veenfabriek (link)

Installation & Direction | A.I., John van Oostrum Text | A.I, Jibbe Willems, Ninke Overbeek Music | A.I., Lam Lai Stage design | Noa Helder Acting | A.I., Anna Schoen, Chandana Sarma, Jeroen van Arkel, Monica Hofman orchestra De Ereprijs | conducted by Gregory Charette Production | Caco Verhees Technique | Vincent Krouwer Publicity | Kelly de Haan, Lies Mensink, Janaï Shibolet, Marcel Vos Campaign image | Studio Miek Uittenhout

human/Artificial Intelligence

What kind of creature is an AI (Artificial Intelligence) anyway? And what is a human? Can AI think, philosophise and even create art with us about this? In h/AI, de Veenfabriek, Orkest De Ereprijs and theatre group ECHO take up the challenge and make superhuman musical theatre together with AI.

Artificial intelligence has become part of our humanity. It supports our thought processes, influences our choices and takes over more and more tasks from us. Unnoticed, "AI" is already in our devices and systems. Just a little longer and AI will take over our heads. According to supporters, this promises much good, but critics point to future dangers. Will AI help us rise above ourselves? Or will it make us fall to earth with our pride?

h/AI is a superhuman manifestation featuring four actors, a 14-piece orchestra, AI and the audience. How big is AI's influence on the play, the music and what does the audience notice? We will experience it in h/AI, human/Artificial Intelligence: musical theatre by creators, actors, musicians and audiences who, together with AI, enter the future.

foto @ Bart Grietens

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Exhibition | In the pause of a gesture there might be an echo #3

11-25 June 2022, Arti et Amicitiae, Amsterdam opening hours: Tue-Sun 12:00 - 18:00

SIGHTLESS SEEING #5: REMEMBER BY HEART by Sarah van Lamsweerde

Immersed in the video-installation Sightless Seeing #5: Remember by Heart, we follow performer LEROY DE BÖCK deep into the collection of the former Theater Instituut Nederland (TIN). Guided by his physical memory, his senses, and by the careful keepers of the collection, we discover small openings in the closeted memories of generations of theatre makers and lovers. Remember by Heart allows us to explore stories of the past and future with our entire bodies. Concept and creation: SARAH VAN LAMSWEERDE, development and performance: LEROY DE BÖCK, camera and editing: ALINA OZEROVA. The tactile projection screen and costumes are created or assembled by JANNEKE RAAPHORST and textile design assistant TZVIKA GUTTER. The soundtrack is composed by LAM LAI, with additional recordings by MARTIJN TELLINGA. The tactile scale model in the film was designed by MARJOCA DE GREEF, SARAH VAN LAMSWEERDE, and ANASTASIJA PANDILOVSKA. Remember by Heart was filmed on location at IWO Boekendepot and Allard Pierson Museum. Many thanks to Gonneke Janssen, Hans van Keulen, Rogier Rompen and Martine Lunshof. For this work of art, no theatre heritage was handled directly or taken outside the archive. more info: https://www.arti.nl/tentoonstelling/in-the-pause-of-a-gesture-there-might-be-an-echo/?fbclid=IwAR1QQ44r-kYdheONpdsxZL-4JH7sqEuaOgXSn0z4QPdQ5D2p08jRnxs_7ws

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Unheard Records | Compilation004: 귀신소리 "Ghost Sound"

Released on 18/11/2021

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Exhibition | Collaboration project with Artist Lo Lai Lai The Unexpected Guest

27 Mar - 10 Apr 2021 Lung Fu Shan Environmental Education Centre Hong Kong

The Unexpected Guest

Artist Lo Lai Lai Natalie collaborated with composer Lam Lai to discuss what the ideal relationship between man and nature should be, and the paradox of the coexistence between man and urban wildlife.

“Is it restlessness or an undercurrent that is behind the romantic and charming façade of the countryside?  The English cottages have always been a secret garden for visitors. With the old inhabitants on the pondside gone far with their laughters, the place is now enlivened by pairs and pairs of bright eyes of the wild boars who are regular guests in the dark.  Farmers from all over Hong Kong suffered serious losses. As both the people and boars had to sustain their own living, ideas for solutions sprouted, including "death threats" against the wild boars that wandered in the city, playing in water pools and shopping malls and rummaging through recycling bins to find food. “Who is the unexpected guest,” citizens debated on and off the Internet. Yet, the farmers still had no choice but to continue dealing with the wild boars in the field day and night.  Desires are, perhaps, like a flowing stream—it goes on and on. “

The Unexpected Guest Single Channel Video, Mixed Media and Installation Size Variable Lam Lai, Lo Lai Lai Natalie 

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Sonic Anchor Special Series: Sound Forms 2020 – A Festival of Sound

17 Oct, 2020 Hong Kong Arts Centre

details: Contemporary Musiking Hong Kong (link)

L-H-T-P-T-M for video and sound L-H-T-P-T-M as a short-term for Light Has To Pass Through Me, is a live recording using analog synthesisers, depicting three modes of listening. Mode I embraces the listener in the sound space, Mode II suggests the listener to follow, and Mode III dissolves the sound space as if the listener becomes invisible.

The visual part develops from pinhole camera models where the camera aperture is described as a point, the beam of light from that point passes through the pinhole and creates a point of light inside the camera.

(photo:HKAC)

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DIE IRRITIERTE STADT | Site-specific project - BASKETBALL

26 July, 2020, 13:15 and 15:00 Basket court, Jugendhaus Nord Stuttgart

details: Die Irritierte Stadt (link)

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Basketball

The gymnasium is a theatre. People come full of expectations, experience enthusiasm, disappointment and much more. Two teams move in basketball at the same time lightly and energetically to almost brutal. Where everyday experiences shift more and more into digital space, Basketball evokes the body and the collective experience. Lam Lai composes a piece for dancers and athletes between training and theatre, between competition and choreography.

Komposition & künstlerische Leitung: Lam Lai Choreographie: Smadar Goshen Tänzer*innen: Eva Baumann, Angélica Topfstedt,Petra Stransky Basketballspieler: Thomas Krebser, Till Obermüller, Frantisek Zernich

From Lam Lai’s perspective, a sports hall is »another theatre stage, a place where people can physically feel the enthusiasm of other people». Because the enthusiastic shouts of others »make the eardrum vibrate. And you unintentionally come into contact with other people. However, considering that our lives are becoming increasingly digitalised, this analogue reality can seem as far away as any memories of the past in one’s own life».

For Lam Lai, basketball is an excellent example of a »space» in which, both in a narrow and figurative sense, several quite ambiguous realities collide. Fascinated by this parallel to everyday life, Lam Lai explores in her project Basketball with dancers and basketball players in the formation 3+3 visions of a possible future that could result from the forced disappearance of sports halls. Since the sports hall, according to Lam Lai, is »a place where the joy of the vitality of encounter only seems to flare up in harmony with its extremely fragile condensations».

In the ideal case, three basketball players interested in art and a referee meet three dancers and/or performers. Lam Lai hopes that the meeting of the sports and the art team will lead to completely new movement patterns: »When the dancers meet the athletes with their high technical level, the absurd movements of the dancers could stimulate the athletes to react in their own way with absurd movements. »I hope for these beautiful moments.» And for this Lam Lai composes a kind of soundscape – as a supplement or as a contrast.

[text from the festival’s website]

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New releases! 'Light has to Pass Through Me' is an album recorded by Lam Lai in June 2020.

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02022020.SPACE | Global Internet Streaming Project

2 Feb, 2020 Internet, multiple locations (HK, NL, CAT, TW, KR, GR, etc..)

details: 02022020.Space (link)

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02022020.SPACE

producer: Lam Lai

The most brilliant cultural highlights of recent times have involved people broadcasting ideas in innovative ways, with web-based technology becoming one of the major elements in our daily life. 02022020, also a 8-digit computer-friendly code, is ideally situated in the Internet culture, ushering in the new vision of information exchange in the nearest future. On 02-02-2020, a collective of artists created a 26-hour programme of artworks and performances that were streamed on the Internet for viewers in all timezones. The Live performances with local audience were presented in 10+ cities around the world. The audience also watched the streaming of the performances and artworks in different locations.