During my animation studies at the School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong, I developed a deep interest in screen-based and panel-based imagery, which led me to explore the dimension of time across diverse mediums and contextual frameworks. I turned to drawing as a means to document and preserve community narratives amid urban development, using this static medium to capture fleeting moments and temporal events—particularly within Hong Kong’s rapidly shifting socio-political landscape.

Armed with watercolours and a sketchpad, I began illustrating the city’s old shopfronts as a way to engage with the community. My approach centred on framing specific perspectives—facades, store signs, proprietors within their spaces. Over time, I honed my command of watercolour, employing a curated palette and deliberate compositional balance. 

As the collection expanded, the method crystallised into a rule-based system—a structured approach where the only variables were the locations and individuals encountered. This practice evolved into what I now term rule-based drawing: a reflective process that examines the subconscious frameworks through which we perceive, interact, and impose order. It is an exercise in creating constraints, reimagining structures, and questioning established systems while creating engagement with the community and generating dialogues that not only enrich the work’s narrative but also refine my aim: to observe, document, and amplify marginalised voices within a rapidly shifting sociopolitical landscape.

After a decade of reportage drawing, creating hundreds of works documenting Hong Kong’s disappearing urban landscape, questions began to arise: What meaning do these drawings hold against irreversible urban erasure? Does their aesthetic quality undermine their archival and historical significance? Or is it precisely the artist’s voice—subjective, interpretive—that lends authenticity to the preservation of heritage in a rapidly transforming city?

I first employed 3D scanning as a documentation tool in the Barter Archive (2022) project, using it to capture objects from the fish market. The resulting scans provide online accessibility, while post-processing enhances their spatial reviewability. Often perceived as objective, 3D scanning is, for me, also a democratising medium, one that decentralises authorship and encourages participatory engagement. While this approach undermines the artistic voice, it raises important questions about who should or can perform the scanning process, as well as the potential of such archives for community involvement. To explore this, I invited shop owners to operate the device themselves. In doing so, they became active authors, meticulously examining every corner and hidden detail, framing their perspectives through the lens. Despite the device’s tendency to simplify reality and the further abstraction imposed by technical limitations, the human operator remains central, making deliberate choices about what to document and how to represent it. This method not only facilitates critical engagement but also opens new avenues for broader discourse.

In Foreseen Property Agency (2023), a collaborative project with Kachi Chan, we explored the expanded narrative potential of these digital artefacts. The fictional property agency ‘sells’ point clouds, using satire to interrogate digital ownership and value creation and criticise prevalent cultural narratives in the digitised world. This experience motivated me to examine the interplay between technology and its theoretical foundations, using them as lenses for research, analysis, and discourse, probing their potential to address current socio-economic challenges in Asia.

Driven by these reflections, I began connecting with like-minded individuals and initiated the first Asia Artist Meetup through the newly established platform, SATA (Society Art Technology Asia). In the past six months, I articulated my research approach and analysed the thinking processes and creative methods of my fellow artists, whose work consistently reflects a critical engagement with socio-technical advancements. The medium specificity embodied in their projects—ranging from interactive storytelling and performance lectures to audience engagement—reveals a shared focus on social change and equality.

Starting from using technology as a preservation tool for archiving local heritage to exploring its potential for reflective, critical engagement, my practice has expanded to engage in broader discourses with participants from diverse cultural backgrounds with shared intentions. These discussions will continue to evolve in multi-directional, accumulative, and co-creative ways, shaping the platform collaboratively. I hope SATA will grow as a space for knowledge exchange and collaboration, fostering a community of solidarity that not only examines technological strategies in local contexts but also our cultural narratives.

Barter Archive, Billingsgate Fish Market, London, 2021

Reportage Drawing, Tsuen Wan Heung Che Street Market, 2024

Foreseen Property Agency, Fringe Club, Hong Kong, 2023

3D Scan, Chu Wing Kee, Hong Kong, 2023

PAT WINGSHAN WONG (aka Flyingpig) is an artist and researcher whose research-led projects explore the interplay between people and urban transformation, particularly in the context of capitalisation and its impacts on both the real and digital worlds.