Ray LC
What You See Is What You Eat
VR Experience
Hong Kong Arts Centre
What You See Is What You Eat explores Hong Kong’s culinary cultural heritage as propagated by the traditions of local communities. The project by RAY LC, Star Liu, Xiaoke Zeng, Bowen Liu involved working with local chefs and expert family cooks to use Generative AI to visualize the cooking process and its contingencies and expectations in a way to record a form of intangible culinary cultural heritage.
MetaObjects worked with the team to create a VR experience with 360 video interviews of the chefs and their cooking processes presented alongside AI generated 3D models of dishes in which users could pick-up and inspect at close range. Several traditional dining environments were created to share the process of material procurement, food preparation, unexpected alternative options, and familial traditions that make up Cantonese culinary heritage. The work was presented in the exhibition Future Tense at the Hong Kong Art Centre from 1-15 March 2025.
More info: https://futuretensehk.wordpress.com/2024/11/13/the-art-of-connection/
About the artist
RAY LC is Assistant Professor at the School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong. His practice creates interaction environments for building connections to the future and past. He uses speculative narrative approaches to probe the ways humans adapt to technology. His artistic practice draws from his research in neuroscience and HCI and has presented works at BankArt, New York Hall of Science, KYOTO Design Lab, Elektra Montreal, Ars Electronica, Saari Residency, New Museum, NeurIPS, CVPR, Angewandte Festival, JCCAC, Osage Gallery, Macau Art Biennale, amongst others. He has been awarded by Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, Verizon Connected Futures, Adobe Design Award, Microsoft Imagine Cup, Kone Foundation, Davis Peace Foundation, NY Foundation for the Arts, Lumen Prize, Hong Kong Arts Development Council, Hong Kong Research Grants Council GRF. He is founder of the Studio for Narrative Spaces.