Research and Development Project: "R=Live/Lines"

Imagine transforming The Lab into a living stone garden — an artificial ecosystem of sound, movement, and light jointly built and kept by artistic directors Kenny Wong and Karen Yu, in collaboration with composer and sound artist Hugo Morales Murguía. Robotic stones drift among projections through the space in their own personalities, carrying their own habits, trajectories and voices. Some return to familiar paths, others insist on carving out new ones, each carrying its own sound and personality.

Governed by a poetic rule principle of “position + path = sound/line”, but nothing here is predetermined. Every movement leaves a trace: lines drawn across the floor and as sound disperse in the air, as technology, bodies and stones co-write the work in real time.

The performance emerges gradually across interconnected scenes from stillness, to a series of encounters between humans and machines. Rather than a relationship command and control, it proposes one form of collaboration. Audiences are invited to move beyond passive observation and become active co-composers, shaping the evolving landscape through their presence and interactions, inviting audiences from curious observers into active co‑composers.

This is not a mindfulness retreat, but a testing ground for imagining how we might live alongside machines that appear to possess tendencies of their own.

The garden keeps memory: every gentle nudge redirects a stone, bending a trajectory, transforming the sonic and visual composition. Stones navigate around bodies or quietly hold their ground, as though nature and ode each insist on following their own logic. Push a stone, redirect its path, or simply stand quietly in its way — as if every stone is learning to breathe alongside you.

The garden listens and responds in real-time, becoming alive. The performance culminates in collective stillness: the calmer the space, the more subtle, spacious and intricate the ecosystem becomes.