Date: April to May 2022, March 2023
Venue: Centre Pompidou
Co-Organised by Cneai =, Consulate General of France in Hong Kong and Macau, K11 Art Foundation & Videotage
Supported by HKADC
Partners: Cinéma du réel, Lafayette Anticipations
Special Thanks: Hong Kong Baptist University, School of Creative Arts
270 years ago, French philosopher and writer Voltaire published Micromégas - a proto-science fiction in the Age of Enlightenment. It narrates a space journey of a gigantic traveller Micromégas and his encounters on different planets. Inspired by astronomy, physics, and philosophy at that time, the satirical novel remarks how little humankind is compared to the infinite cosmos.
Almost three centuries later, humans come to an era where the world has become too small for us. Under globalisation, geographical distance has disappeared through the internet, and urban societies have grown more and more alike, seemingly bright, towards the future. The rapidly evolving technologies have made us feel as if we know everything and can do anything. Yet the pandemic over the last year prompted us to wonder if we are too little to see our limitations? Perhaps it is time for us to understand the world on a micro-level by exchanging our history, creativity, knowledge, and ideas as Micromégas did.
Rolled out in 2021, Micromégas is an artistic and cross-cultural exchange residency encouraging conversations on media art between France and Hong Kong initiated by Videotage and the Consulate General of France in Hong Kong and Macau. For the second edition of the programme, Hong Kong interdisciplinary artist Kingsley Ng visited Paris for his residency, exploring the city in search of stories and inspirations for a new artistic creation. Kingsley will present his new project Passage (INTERLUDES) which he developed during the Micromégas residency at the 2023 Cinéma du réel.