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Paul Pfeiffer | 2003 | Single-channel digital video | Colour | 17 min. 55 sec.

M+, Hong Kong

In Morning After the Deluge, artist Paul Pfeiffer takes JMW Turner’s 1843 painting, Light and Colour (Goethe’s Theory)–the Morning after the Deluge–Moses Writing the Book of Genesis as his departure point. Using real time footage of a sunrise and a sunset, Pfeiffer fused together two halves of the sun to form a fake image. A blazing sun floats mid-frame in a luminous red sky as a band of inky blue waves rolls vertically from top to bottom. The artist disrupts our sense of perspective, creating a disjointed landscape by making the sun stable and the horizon unstable. Pfeiffer’s work foregrounds the artifice of digital media and challenges our perception of time and space.

Len Lye | 1958, revised 1979 | Single-channel restored 16mm film, transferred to HD digital video | B&W | 4 min. 24 sec.

M+, Hong Kong

Using a camera-less technique, artist Len Lye created Free Radicals by engraving the surface of exposed black film with dental tools, nails, needles, wire brushes, fine-toothed saws, and an arrowhead. When magnified and animated with a projector, these miniature scratches transform into twirling figures that vibrate and dance against an inky black frame.

Lye dedicated his life to composing motion. Best known for his experimental films and kinetic sculptures, Lye cemented his place in history by pioneering the techniques of painting, etching, collaging, and stencilling images directly onto celluloid filmstrips.

Black and White—is often viewed as binary opposites, but like truth, it is often much more complicated and nuanced. Instead of using colours, artists desaturate an image or modify its tonal range to convey stark photographic truths to express emotions and the experience of time through ink on the granular surface of paper.

See the works featured in Black and White here.

Colour—plays a significant role in shaping how we sensuously perceive the world with an ability to directly influence our emotional responses. As the images in the video cycle through the range of a rainbow’s spectrum, we analyse the ways basic tools of point, line, and motion are augmented by creative palette choices.

See the works featured in Colour here.

Nature—and our place within it serve as the inspiration for this video. The scrolling animation suggests a journey across a patchwork landscape of different creative ideas. Along the way, changing cadences and stopping points help us understand the universal idea of the sublime, fragile beauty, and spiritual contemplation implied in individual works.

See the works featured in Nature here.

Creatures—reminds us of the diverse ways in which animals have served as inspiration and vehicles for expression in art and design. Works in Creatures range from contemporary depictions of horses in motion—a common motif in traditional Chinese art—to our habit of attributing human characteristics to animals. They also look into the future—at the creations of artificially intelligent lifeforms.

See the works featured in Creatures here.

Signs and Symbols—are the visual cues that help inform our interpretations of visual art, graphic design, and moving image. They form a wider reading of visual culture that narrates our personal daily experiences—from the handwritten calligraphy of the King of Kowloon signposting an individual’s mark on urban territory, to glowing neons signifying a transition into the night.

See the works featured in Signs and Symbols here.

Painting—represents the complex interplay between moving gestures and using tonal or colour variances to define character traits and communicate meanings. Challenging its traditional role as a static medium, representational and abstract works are shown intermingling with expanded notions of painting as an animated medium, showcasing the genre's vitality and ability at contesting preconceived notions.

See the works featured in Painting here.

Home City—celebrates the liveliness of Hong Kong visual culture, including its colours, geometries, and textures. Interweaving art, design and architecture, and moving image, it captures the history and present of Hong Kong cultural expression from the streets to the home, and beyond.

See the works featured in Home City here.

Poetry of the Mind—highlights the use of ink, a principle medium and aesthetic in Asian visual art, as a vehicle for contemplation. Combining intuitive lines, floating symmetries, calligraphic marks, and awe-inspiring landscapes, it meditates on the material, spiritual, physical, and intangible qualities of contemporary ink art.

See the works featured in Poetry of the Mind here.

Objects—uses visual cues to playfully connect art, design and architecture, and moving image works from the M+ Collections. Inspiring us to explore our genuine thoughts and memories, it brings diverse objects into witty juxtaposition by igniting our imagination.

See the works featured in Objects here.

Mass Production—navigates the history of manufacturing in Hong Kong and the Greater Bay Area—from plastics to textiles, and home appliances to digital technologies. With a machine-like rhythm, it captures images of ordinary daily life intertwined with global capital forces.

See the works featured in Mass Production here.

Urbanism—explores the modern transformation and urbanisation of Asia as a source of inspiration for artists, architects, and filmmakers. Here, the city is not just a backdrop or setting for action, but a potent catalyst of history, memory, and belonging.

See the works featured in Urbanism here.

Technology—uses screen-led motions like scrolling, swiping, scanning, and zooming to explore artistic visions of the future. From early developments in consumer electronics to more recent discoveries in Artificial Intelligence, it celebrates artists' capacities to imagine new possibilities for living.

See the works featured in Technology here.