Hong Kong Baptist University secures funding from RGC Theme-based Research Scheme to build platform technologies for symbiotic creativity

HONG
KONG SAR – Media OutReach – 13 July
2021 – A research project led by Hong Kong Baptist University (HKBU) entitled
“Building Platform Technologies for Symbiotic Creativity in Hong Kong” has been
awarded HK$52.8 million in research funding from the Theme-based Research
Scheme (11th round) under the Research Grants Council (RGC) for a five-year project.
This is the first time that major funding has been allocated by the RGC for an art-tech
project.

The research team led by Professor Guo
Yike, Vice-President (Research and Development) (right) and Professor Johnny M
Poon, Associate Vice-President (Interdisciplinary Research) at HKBU has been
awarded HK$52.8 million in research funding from RGC to develop platform
technologies for symbiotic creativity.

The
research team will develop platform technologies for symbiotic creativity,
providing unlimited art content for humans, including an art data repository,
an artificial intelligence (AI) creative algorithm system, a research theatre,
a digital
art and policy network, and some unique and creative application projects, to usher in
a new era of art technology.

Led by
Professor Guo Yike, Vice-President (Research and Development), and Professor
Johnny M Poon, Associate Vice-President (Interdisciplinary Research), at HKBU,
the research team will develop an immersive and interactive extended reality (XR)
platform to capture human data during the artistic creation and appreciation
process, which includes the cognitive and physiological data of artists and the
audience, such as brain waves, body temperature and heart rates, gait and
movements, etc. The platform will then convert the data into the descriptors of
cognition, emotions, and behavioural patterns.

The
researchers will associate and link the artworks with the descriptors to build a
comprehensive and extensive data repository for artificial intelligence model
training. It will enable machines to learn human aesthetics, instead of
mimicking art created by humans.

The
platform will also enable the audience to immerse themselves in a virtual world.
They will be surrounded by images, sounds, etc, and have new artistic experiences.
In addition, the immersive and interactive XR platform will be equipped with a
number of sensing devices, which will help the artists to go beyond the traditional
forms and boundaries and communicate and interact with the audience in new
ways.

“This research project has secured
funding from the RGC, demonstrating that Hong Kong attaches great importance to
the development of artistic and creative technologies based on AI. This project
stands at
the forefront of the arts and science nexus, harnessing the power of science
and technology to advance human and AI interaction in art creation. It will
foster a new direction in art created by both humans and machines,” said
Professor Guo.

“We will
spare no effort in building a world-class AI art creation platform, and it will
drive a new revolution that transforms the creative and cultural industries. It
will enable Hong Kong to assume a leading position in art-tech on the global
stage,” he added.

Under this
project, HKBU will launch three application projects: the Super AI artist – the
world’s first “Combined Music and Art Biennale”, which will host
multidisciplinary musical works and artworks jointly created by humans and AI; Shared
Mind and Empathetic AI – a concert series featuring a three-way collaboration
between performers, the audience and machines; and Symbiotic Opera – a new form
of opera that integrates with immersive XR technology, and it will be jointly created
by humans and machines in an immersive virtual world.

Members
of the multidisciplinary research team led by HKBU include cognitive
scientists, AI and data scientists, media scientists, ethicists and art policy
scholars from Yale University, the University of Cambridge, Imperial College
London, the University of Kent, Tsinghua University, the University of Hong
Kong and City University of Hong Kong. The research team will also collaborate
closely with industrial and musical partners, including Huawei, Microsoft,
SenseTime and Opera Hong Kong. 

#HongKongBaptistUniversity #HKBU