2025 TSMC╳NTT+ The Young Artists' Atelier –Algorithmic 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 Algorithmic Art and Audio-Visual Art.
The mentors of the 2025 Algorithmic Art program include Cosima Terrasse, Hans Block, and Moritz Riesewieck from Laokoon, while the mentor of the 2025 Audio-Visual Art program is Escher TSAI, creative director of Dimension Plus. 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: Rehearsal room, National Taichung Theater
- Time: 10:00-12:30
Mentors｜Hans Block, Moritz Riesewieck
Creator｜Katie Yang
Creator｜WANG Chun-yen
Host｜Jay TSENG (Director, Ultra Combos)
Commentator｜CHOU Man-nung (Interdisciplinary Artist)
Commentator｜CHENG Ke-chun (Electronic Music Producer)
Introduction
Mentors
Laokoon
Laokoon is a collective of artists based in Berlin and Vienna that combines investigative and scientific research with various forms of creative. They develop essays, documentaries, theater productions, lecture performances and radio plays centering on the question of how our concept of human beings and societies is changing in the digital age.
Cosima Terrasse is a german-french artist and landscape architect, who develops new participatory art projects for public spaces, theaters and cultural institutions, currently for the European Capital of Culture 2025 in Chemnitz, Germany. The underlying aim of her award-winning work is to explore the relationship between public and private interests. In collaboration with an international transdisciplinary team she developed the live-data-analysis-performance "Mauvais Je(ux)" for CERN, Geneva, Switzerland. For KÖR - Public Arts Vienna, Austria, and in collaboration with data scientists, Cosima Terrasse is currently developing a participatory project based on Google-Maps-data. From 2018 - 2020 Cosima taught at the Social Design Studio of the University for Applied Arts in Vienna.
Hans Block and Moritz Riesewieck are authors and documentary film directors. Their debut film "The Cleaners" about the shadow industry of digital censorship in Manila celebrated its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival 2018 and has since been screened at more than 70 international film festivals, in cinemas and on TV worldwide. It was nominated for an Emmy and the German Television Award and has received numerous international awards, including the Prix Europa for the Best European TV documentary 2018 and the Grimme Audience Award 2019. Their second feature documentary "Eternal You" about the emerging digital afterlife industry celebrated its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival 2024, is currently shown in theatres and on TV in various countries worldwide and was again nominated for several international awards, among others as Best European TV documentary. Their TED talk on freedom of in times of social networks has reached an audience of millions. Their essay "Vom Ende der Endlichkeit" (Goldmann 2022) was translated into several languages. Since 2024, Block and Riesewieck are members of the German Film Academy.
Under the label Laokoon Cosima Terrasse, Hans Block and Moritz Riesewieck collectively developed the artistic data-doppelganger-experiment "Made to Measure"(2021) consisting of an interactive AI-driven web-experience (awarded with the renowned "Information is beautiful"-award) an international TV documentary (which was nominated for Best European TV-Documentary of the year 2021 and a global impact campaign in collaboration with OSCE Representative for the Freedom of the Media. The web-experience has reached millions of people and is still available online in several different languages, the TV documentary has already been distributed to Canada, Chile, multiple European countries in theatres and on TV.
In addition, the artist collective Laokoon is developing new theatrical forms and formats, recently for example with their work "Where you will find me" for the Munich Kammerspiele in the form of an analog-digital search for clues in a hyper-realistically staged Munich apartment and through dialogues with an AI chatbot, with their live data experiment "Before my very I" for PACT Zollverein Essen or their piece "Keine Menschenseele" for the Vienna Burgtheater, for which they staged human-like avatars and created an artificial voice that sounded suspiciously similar to a well-known Viennese acting legend.
Creators & Works
Mazu Signals: Pilgrimage Resonance
Mazu Signals: Pilgrimage Resonance is a multidisciplinary art project initiated by Katie YANG in 2025. Rooted in the pilgrimage culture of the Baishatun Mazu procession, the work gathers sounds, images, and data collected along the pilgrimage route, transforming them into an artistic language. At its core is a full-scale metallic recreation of the iconic pink palanquin, presented as an installation within the exhibition space. Through the integration of video, soundscapes, and audience interaction, the project creates an experience that exists in the liminal space between ritual and performance.
The work not only evokes the collective energy of traditional belief systems but also employs data and technological language to explore how "signals" can emerge as spiritual symbols of our time. Mazu Signals: Pilgrimage Resonance is both an artistic experiment and a cultural practice, inviting audiences to reimagine the flow and power of faith. The project presented in September at Taipei’s Songshan Cultural and Creative Park in the form of an exhibition, followed by a trial performance at the National Taichung Theater in November. Conceived as a long-term endeavor, YANG envisions the project evolving through diverse artistic mediums, continuously expanding and extending its scope. She also aspires to bring Mazu Signals to international stages, sharing Taiwan’s unique pilgrimage culture with audiences around the world.
Katie YANG is a multidisciplinary artist whose work spans film, television, music, and theater. Her practice encompasses producing, screenwriting, directing, and songwriting. In September 2024, she took on the roles of producer, screenwriter, and composer for the series The Cleaner, which topped Netflix’s rankings and earned six Golden Bell Award nominations. She also serves as a producer on the beloved classic animated film Grandma and Her Ghosts 2: Baby Power, expanding Taiwan's original IP landscape.
In 2023, YANG co-created an international collaborative project Bone by Bone, Hair by Hair with artist CHANG Shuo-yin, serving as director and screenwriter. Combining puppetry, dance, motion capture technology, and video art, the work was selected from over 300 global submissions for the Ibsen Festival in Norway, and will have its world premiere there in May 2026. In 2025, YANG launched the project Mazu Signals: Pilgrimage Resonance, which merges data with local religious practices. Using pilgrimage GPS data, soundscapes, and interactive installations, the project explores the intersections of faith, technology, and collective experience.
YANG continues to create across film, television, and live art, aiming to share Taiwan’s stories with audiences around the world.
Reflected Reality
This project explores the integration of virtual reality (VR) and artificial intelligence (AI) in the realm of art. By translating human behavior and data in real time, it seeks to construct new narrative possibilities for immersive experiences within new media. Centered on the idea of "self-mirroring," Reflected Reality aims to break down the boundary between the viewer and the artwork, inviting participants to confront an inner world generated from their own being yet interpreted through AI within a virtual environment.
The work serves as an experiment to explore whether AI can be combined with innovative testing methods to interpret a person's personality traits and emotional states through their interactions and biometric data. These analyses are then translated in real time into dynamic visual forms. Within the VR environment, viewers are not only observed and analyzed but are also witnessing and experiencing their own projections. This process is more than a mere display of technology; it is a form of inquiry. Can data and algorithms truly approach the depths of the human inner world? And the images we see—are they genuine reflections of the mind, or illusions reconstructed through AI computation?
Currently studying Communication Design at Shih Chien University, WANG Chun-yen works as a visual artist specializing in animation and interactive design at 247 Visual Art. His practice focuses on supporting artists in realizing their visual concepts and developing interactive design. Skilled in image and interaction production and cross-software integration, his work spans 3D visual effects, 2D motion graphics, interactive projections, and XR visual interactions including VR, AR, and MR.
Selected Works and Experiences:
2025 C-LAB Sound Art Festival: DIVERSONICS, Animation Design
2025 Public Television Service, Madame Butterfly, Visual Effects Design
2025 AMBI SPACE ONE, Nature and Artificial Natures: Symbiosis Beyond The Organic, Technical Coordination
2024 Creative Expo Taiwan, Niau, Animation Design
2023 National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, U-108 SPACE, Streaming Colony, Technical Coordination
