This programme is presented in conjunction with the M+ Collections exhibition Shanshui: Echoes and Signals. Through eight programmes of films and moving image works, it extends and deepens the exhibition’s meditation on the complex connections between humanity and the landscape in our post-industrial, increasingly virtual world.

Andrei Tarkovsky’s sci-fi classic Solaris takes us far beyond observable reality, deep into the inner space of the soul. Similarly, the programme Signals from the Mountain, the Universe, and the Machine features three essay films by artists Riar Rizaldi, Liu Xin, and Unmake Lab, exploring the tension between rationality and the unknowable.

Humanity’s uncontrollable desire to exploit natural resources for economic and political gain is addressed in Mediations on Oil, which presents Werner Herzog’s apocalyptic parable Lessons of Darkness and Sanaz Sohrabi’s essay film Scenes of Extraction. Park Chan-kyong's Belated Bosal considers the options following nuclear disasters like the 2011 Fukushima incident through a pertinent study of radiation from material and spiritual perspectives.

Masahiro Shinoda’s cult classic Himiko follows the destiny of the prophetess Himiko, a mortal woman with shamanic powers, whose body becomes a site for political and spiritual conflict.

Tides of Knowing explores water-related rituals and traditions in the works of Chikako Yamashiro, Charwei Tsai, Kelvin Kyong Kun Park, Andrew Tuan Nguyen, Yen-Chao Lin, and ikkibawiKrrr. Sounds from the Stones presents films that frame stones as living beings and channels for meditation by Toshio Matsumoto, Kamal Aljafari, Chonchanok Thanatteepwong,  Pobwarat Maprasob, and James Richards. Finally, Lo Lai Lai Natalie’s lecture performance Resilient Echoes brings these questions back home, as she navigates Hong Kong’s complex eco-systems from human and non-human perspectives.

Through the voices of these leading artists and filmmakers, From Signal to Screen calls for an increased awareness of traditional social and knowledge structures in which humanity evolves as an integral part of the ecosystem. Echoing the literati tradition around shanshui, the works explore relations between stillness and motion, vision and imagination, and the immediacy of experience and the persistence of historical memory, generating new ideas and connections across the programme and the exhibition.