Beijing Art & Technology Week opens, blending creativity and innovation

As the sun set on Beijing's 798 Art District on Thursday, its Locomotive Square was abuzz with excitement as around a dozen "Tiangong" humanoid robots from Beijing Innovation Center of Humanoid Robotics, or X-Humanoid, performed alongside artists from contemporary dance group Tao Dance Theater 2.

The stunning piece, Playable Technology: Infinite Walk, kicked off the second Beijing Art & Technology Week, a 21-day event that promises to offer Beijing residents and visitors a feast of art and technology throughout the upcoming two holidays.

Playable technology, real-world impact

Themed "Playable Technology", the event features acclaimed writer and polymath Feng Tang as brand ambassador and brings together artists, technologists, industry leaders, and the public for more than 100 programs, including public art, performances, forums, and exhibitions, according to its host Beijing 798 Culture & Technology Co Ltd.

"With this festival, we hope to marry art and technology in real settings," Guo Huaping, president of Beijing 798 Culture & Technology Co Ltd, told the China Daily website.

"We aspire to advance premieres, industrial applications of emerging technologies, and international cooperation, and to allow cultural content to energize consumption in the art district and the wider city."

Behind the scenes: building the performance

Behind the successful debut of the human-robot dance were round-the-clock tests and adjustments by the robotics engineers and dancers over the last two weeks.

According to the event organizers, "Tiangong" robots first learned the motion capture data of human dancers and sequences were pared back after testing revealed the robot's practical limits. The dancers then relearned and adjusted their own movements based on what remained.

Ding Gang, algorithm lead in the motion-control department of X-Humanoid, told reporters that the performing robots are mass-produced, general-purpose models.

"This was a stress test for the whole system—navigation, locomotion, full-body coordination. Every link had to hold," he said. "Continuous high-torque output and athletic shifts tested the robot's joints, hardware, and algorithmic robustness."

Asked when the robots would be able to interact directly with human dancers, Ding said that his team would be able to make that possible in a month or two, by simply optimizing the algorithms.

Humans, not replaced

Tao Ye, founder of Tao Dance Theater, said the collaboration grew from a proposal made by the event host and that the back-and-forth discussion with X-Humanoid engineers created interesting movement research.

Tao emphasized that the point of the collaboration was never substitution.

"Robots will never replace people dancing. They treat humans as a benchmark to chase, while humans keep surpassing themselves. That pursuit of excellence in humanity is what truly leads machine capability forward."

"The most important thing contemporary art does is turn uncertainty into reality. A live event like this expands what we can hope for in the future," Tao said, praising 798's role in facilitating the collaboration.

Premieres and new works

Beyond the opening show, first launches and premieres also fill the Beijing Art & Technology Week.

Artist Chen Baoyang curated a special public project featuring his own work Artificial Humans: An Unfinished Dance — billed as the world's first story-driven tech-art experience. The piece draws on the ancient Chinese legend in which the craftsman Yanshi presents King Mu of the Western Zhou Dynasty (c. 11th century–771 BC) with a mechanical figure that can sing and dance. Near the end of the performance, however, it makes a gesture it was never designed to make, frightening Yanshi so much that he tears it apart. Moving through six works, visitors are invited to reconstruct the figure's body and complete a dance, which has remained interrupted for more than 3,000 years.

London-based digital artist Maxim Zhestkov presented the generative work Playscapes, inviting audiences to steer a joystick through shifting virtual ecosystems of light, particles, and real-time scenes.

The event also features debuts of stage works such as Weave by Cosmic Heart Theatre on Thursday and Night Patrol on Saturday by Easternization Movement Theater.

Programming across the district

During the event, many organizations in the 798 Art District, including 798 CUBE, 798 Hyperdimensional Vision, UCCA Center for Contemporary Art, and MACA Art Center, will also present art-and-technology programs.

A number of forums will be held during the Beijing Art & Technology Week, where industry insiders will share new practices at the intersection of technology and art. Notably, the Art, Technology and Humanity Roundtable will be held on Sept 24 alongside the 798 Art & Technology Innovation Forum. Organizers will also release a global co-creation plan for integrating art and technology in new scenarios.

Global collaborations

Internationally, 798 partnered with Austria's Ars Electronica Festival ahead of the week, launching cross-disciplinary collaborations with Chen Baoyang and Tao Dance Theater.

At the opening, 798 and Bounded Space jointly announced the 798 Multidisciplinary Residency Platform. Its first edition, themed Pre/Sense, invites global creators for residencies and interdisciplinary work.

The second Beijing Art & Technology Week is guided by the Publicity Department of the Beijing Municipal Committee of the Communist Party of China, Beijing Municipal Bureau of Economy and Information Technology, the Chaoyang District People's Government of Beijing Municipality, and Beijing Electronics Holding Co Ltd.