2025 TSMC╳NTT+ The Young Artists' Atelier – Audio-Visual Art Program
Learning x Practice x Professional Communication
National Taichung Theater (NTT) focuses on exploring the collaborative possibilities between technology and performing arts, actively advancing innovative applications in interdisciplinary arts.
Since 2020, NTT has launched the LAB X Platform, fostering deeper collaboration between performing arts and technology. The Young Artists' Atelier (referred to as the program) aims to nurture creative talent under the age of 30 on their artistic journey, providing opportunities and support for focused learning, exploration, and experimentation. The program emphasizes the importance of exploration, research, and critical thinking, encouraging creators to practice and validate their ideas within the program. The sixth edition, in collaboration with the TSMC Education and Culture Foundation, features creative works in Audio-Visual Art and Algorithmic Art.
The mentor of the 2025 Audio-Visual Art program is Escher TSAI, creative director of the Dimension Plus, while the mentors of the 2025 Algorithmic Art program include Cosima Terrasse, Hans Block, and Moritz Riesewieck from Laokoon. Through experience exchange, creative guidance, and hands-on research, young creators will be encouraged to cultivate visionary artistic perspectives, innovative thinking, and practical skills.
Presentation
- Date: November 22, 2025
- Venue: Corner Salon, National Taichung Theater
- Time: 14:00-16:00
Mentor & Host｜Escher TSAI
Creators｜VERA, Justina Aponte
Creators｜HO Hsin-yuan, HO Shu-hsien
Commentator｜Chih-yung Aaron CHIU (Associate Dean, College of Arts, National Tsing Hua University)
Commentator｜CHANG Huei-ming (New Media Artist)
Introduction
Mentor
Creative Director of Dimension Plus and Hello World
Escher TSAI devotes himself to digital art research, promotion and creation. He is the Creative Director of Dimension Plus and Hello World, and Director of Arts and Technology: Creative Innovation and Counseling Project, and 5G Computing Art Project. He also curated 2024 TTXC G.A.M.E. , Hello, Human at MoCA Taipei, The Era of Human-made and RE:CAVE at National Taichung Theater, LIVES at Jut Art Museum, Taoyuan Art and Technology Festival, and C-LAB Future Media Arts Festival.
More
Creators & Works
Lunar Eclipse
This installation uses solar panels as a medium to transform light into sound, converting light into electrical currents that generate auditory experiences. Visible light and shadow occupy the performance space, altering the audience's physical perception of it, while sound, though invisible, reshapes the experience of space as it resonates through textures. Together, light and sound intervene in the environment on multiple levels, intertwining the tangible and the intangible.
The performer takes on the role of a priest, conducting a ritual in dialogue with the installation. This ritual arises from humanity's enduring impulse to engage with the unknown. In the past, rituals served as a form of technology through which people sought to confront the mysteries of nature, offering prayers and sacrifices in an attempt to respond to natural forces. In the contemporary world, this focus of unknown imagination has shifted toward technology itself. Vast, rapidly evolving technological systems have grown beyond individual control, fostering both dependency and fear. These systems generate new norms that, in turn, shape and regulate human perception. Lunar Eclipse uses ritual as a mode of performance, serving as a means for humans to negotiate their relationship with technology, engaging in a dynamic interplay of tension and release.
HO Shu-hsien(L), HO Hsin-yuan(R) Currently pursuing a master's degree in New Media Art at Taipei National University of the Arts, HO Hsin-yuan is passionate about creating sound installations and fascinated by minimal forms and lines. Her works primarily take the form of mechanical installations, sound installations, and audio-visual presentations. Through constant experimentation and exploration, she seeks to reveal interactions between diverse objects, generating unique movement and sound. Her practice explores how sound manifests within space, seeking to redefine the relationship between space and objects.
Selected Works:
2022 – FUTURE VISION LAB TNUA NMA╳SCCD－Immersive Audio-Visual Workshop -The Joint Presentationand, Drowing Days, 2D Visual
2023 – C-LAB Sound Art Festival, Artificial Galaxy, Solar Eclipse, Installation Design, Programmer and Live Performer
2023 – 18th Taipei Digital Art Festival, Artificial Galaxy, Solar Eclipse, Installation Design and Programmer
2024 – Aavistus Festival, Off The Wall, One is All, Creator
Currently pursuing a master's degree in New Media Art at Taipei National University of the Arts, HO Shu-hsien began by exploring how inner states can be translated into spatial and auditory forms during her undergraduate years. Her works often combined mechanical motion, spatial installation, and sound. Her current practice focuses on the relationship between space and sonic materials, seeking to create distinctive soundscapes and spatial aesthetics through a rational and structurally coherent approach.
Selected Works:
2023 – C-LAB Sound Art Festival, Artificial Galaxy, Solar Eclipse, Installation and Sound Design
2023 – 18th Taipei Digital Art Festival, Artificial Galaxy, Solar Eclipse, Installation and Sound Design
2024–2025 5th C-LAB Taiwan Sound Lab╳IRCAM Workshop, Sinking petals beneath the waves, Creator
(gaze_loop)
In the darkness, music reverberates unleashing a rush of dopamine, and flashing lights cut across the dance floor. Here, there are no rules, no judgment, only the freedom for each person to become who they long to be.
(gaze_loop) takes the rave scene as its structural framework, transforming it into an interactive performance experiment. Audiences are invited to step into this camera-watched party alongside the "regulars." Every fiery glance, every body dissolving into the beat is captured, transformed, and projected in real time, looping back between sound and image.
Is ecstatic dancing an act of liberation or a mere replication? Within this multidirectional loop of "gaze," "camera," and "performance," every moment of "freedom" raises the question: is it authentic or illusory?
Justina Aponte(L), VERA(R)A multidisciplinary creator and performer with a background in psychology, VERA works with the body as her primary medium, blending visual and auditory elements in her art. She seeks to become a channel for senses and stories, exploring the dynamics of power between the "digital gaze" and the physical body.
Selected Works:
2024 – Barn169 Theater, Data Soul, Concept and Performance Development
2022 – Peek Human, Keep Human Online Performance Series, Creator and Streaming Technical Coordination, Commissioned by Taipei Performing Arts Center
Justina Aponte is a singer-songwriter, music producer, and DJ. A graduate of the Department of Theatre Arts at Taipei National University of the Arts, she often takes underground parties as a site of artistic exploration, delving into the complexities of human emotions and desires. Her music examines how societal structures and frameworks shape the ways individuals experience and express themselves.
Selected Works:
2024 –Barn169 Theater, Data Soul, Sound Coordinator
2024 – Rock Show in Cloud Gate Theater, SIREN, Collaborative Project with CHANG Yi-ching╳ Ophelia ft. BZARCO
2024 – Work-in-Progress Sense Data: Sensual Measurement, Collaborative Project with LIN Ying-chen
