FUTURE TALKS
IDENTITIES / TECHNOLOGICAL ART / FUTURE CULTURE
Curated forums bringing together scholars, artists, technologists, and communities to explore identity, culture, and the role of technology in shaping our future. These conversations open space for new ideas and collective imagination.
3.1
EAST2046 × University of Westminster: ESEA Heritage Making Through Arts and Technology
Westminster University (London, UK), 28th September 2025
As part of ESEA Heritage Month, EAST2046 collaborated with the University of Westminster’s HOMELandS Research Centre to explore how arts and technology support heritage-making, resilience, and community building. Speakers from Intercultural Roots, Centre 151, and the 706 Youth Community shared participatory approaches to cultural practice and future-making. Participants also engaged in an embodied activity examining trust, belonging, and collective creativity.
Dam Van Huynh is a UK-based dancer and choreographer from Southern Vietnam and the founder of Van Huynh Company. As Director of Centre 151 in Hackney, he leads a Vietnamese-led cultural hub supporting Southeast Asian communities through performance, wellbeing, and cultural exchange.
Maryam Safe is a trustee of Intercultural Roots, a UK charity that connects artists and communities through embodied and performative practices. Her work focuses on how movement and somatic approaches can support wellbeing, cultural dialogue, and social change.
Professor Cangbai Wang is a scholar of migration, heritage, and language, and Co-director of the HOMELandS Research Centre at the University of Westminster. His work examines Chinese diasporas and global migration, including authorship of Museum Representations of Chinese Diasporas (2020).
Litong Zhou is the lead organizer of the 706 Virtual Reality Group, a journalist and
researcher at Uncommons, and a PhD candidate (UCL) in the philosophy of technology. She studies youth communities and decentralized cultures, drawing on her work with the transnational 706 Youth Community.
Dr. Lois Liao is Co-founder and Festival Director of EAST2046, the UK’s first large-scale
ESEA Tech × Art × Community platform. A cross-disciplinary researcher at Cardiff University (PhD UCL; Postdoc LSE), she works at the intersection of technology, culture, and community futures.
3.2
Embodied Practices and Intercultural Roots
Fire (London, UK), 17th Augus 2025
In this talk, Dr. Alex Boyd introduced Intercultural Roots and its network of practitioners, highlighting how creative practitioners use art and embodied practices to support wellbeing, foster connection, and drive social change.
Dr. Alex Boyd is a community entrepreneur and researcher in eco-embodied culture, co-founder of multiple international initiatives, including Intercultural Roots.
3.3
Artist Talk: Seph Li on Philosophy, Interaction, and Digital Worlds
Fire (London, UK), 17th August 2025
In this talk, digital artist Seph Li shared the philosophical ideas and creative methods that shape his practice. He discussed how concepts from Eastern aesthetics, technology, and interaction design inform the immersive experiences he creates.
Seph Li is an internationally exhibited digital artist and former teamLab member known for interactive works that explore the dynamics between artists, audiences, and digital environments.
3.4
Artist Talk: Jiayu Liu on Artmaking with AI Models
Fire (London, UK), 17th August 2025
In this talk, artist Jiayu Liu talked about the inspirations behind her work and also how she incorporates and trains AI models into her creative practices. She also prompts the discussion on the role of AI in the future of art.
Jiayu Liu is an Internationally exhibited media artist whose immersive installations blend AI, live data, and Eastern poetics to explore the evolving relationship between humans, machines, and nature through dynamic, living systems.
3.5
Digital Art Screening: The-innumerable-things-that-existe-things-that-exist by Yoonkyeong (Gabi) Yang
Fire (London, UK), 17th August 2025
In an era where cash has vanished, the only trace of a transaction is a single receipt, prompting questions about what exists, what disappears, and what remains. The-innumerable-things-that-existe-things-that-exist reflects on presence, absence, and the fragile proofs of our everyday existence.
Yoonkyeong (Gabi) Yang creates immersive animations that merge music and moving image to explore shared experiences of time. She has collaborated with major artists including Adele and G-Dragon.
3.6
Artist Talk: Snow (Xueyi) Huang on the Emotion of Digital Art
Fire (London, UK), 17th August 2025
In this talk, Snow (Xueyi) Huang discussed how digital art can evoke emotion, intimacy, and memory in an increasingly algorithmic world. She shared the creative process behind Psyche Wonderland, her multisensory installation that turns dreamlike digital ruins into emotional data landscapes. Through the avatar Psyches, she invites viewers to explore nostalgia, digital decay, and the fragility of digital heritage.
Psyche Studio uses advanced creative technologies to craft immersive visual narratives and interactive experiences, blending avant-garde aesthetics with curiosity-driven approaches across culture, merchandise, software, and art. Snow (Xueyi) Huang is a new media artist and founder of Psyche Studio, holding a BA in Digital Performance Design from the China Academy of Art and an MA with Distinction in Computational Art from Goldsmiths. She is a former Creative Technologist at Rolls-Royce UK.
3.7
Researcher Talk: Iris Long on China’s Rocket Industry
Fire (London, UK), 17th August 2025
In this talk, curator Iris Long discusses her ongoing research into the rocket industry and technological development in China, offering both historical context and critical analysis. She examines how art and technology intersect within this rapidly evolving field and reflects on the broader implications for culture, innovation, and society.
Iris Long is an award-winning independent curator and researcher exploring art and technology, with work shown at major Chinese institutions.
3.8
Researcher Talk: Mapping My Desire Lines in (Digital) Futures
Fire (London, UK), 17th August 2025
This talk explores how “desire lines ”—the informal paths people carve through physical space—can help us understand how we move through digital worlds. Drawing from UX design, land art, and community practice, Anne Lee Steele presents three “desire lines” for digital futures: openness as both connective and exploitative, collective presence as a force for building critical mass, and the creative co-optation of surveillance tools for poetry and heritage. The session invites audiences to imagine alternative pathways in an era of digital and physical enclosure.
Anne Lee Steele is the Research Community Manager for The Turing Way at The Alan Turing Institute, promoting reproducible data science and open collaboration globally.
3.9
Researcher Talk: Bridging Borders, Creating Spaces
Fire (London, UK), 17th August 2025
The talk explores super-diverse cities as contact zones where migrants and places continually remake each other. It moves beyond ethnic and Eurocentric perspectives, focusing on bordering and “languaging” as creative acts of identity negotiation and future place-making. 4
Prof. Cangbai Wang is a historian specializing in Chinese diaspora studies, now founder and co-director of HOMELandS at the University of Westminster.
3.10
Message for <Bumming in Beijing: The Last Dreamers> by Wu Wenguang
Fire (London, UK), 17th August 2025
In this short recorded message, director Wu Wenguang explains the rationale behind editing the original cut of the documentary and invites viewers to reflect on the relevance of its themes thirty-five years after its first screening.
Wu Wenguang (pre-recorded): an independent documentary director referred to as the “godfather of Chinese indie doc ”
3.11
Inside WaytoAGI: Building the World’s Largest Open-Source AI Community
Fire (London, UK), 17th August 2025
This presentation highlights WaytoAGI, the largest open-source AI community dedicated to advancing accessible, community-driven artificial intelligence. It introduces their collaborative ecosystem, tools, and innovations that empower creators, researchers, and developers around the world.
Mimi Xiao is a community representative of Way to AGI, the largest AI open source contributor community and AI tool wiki
3.12
Community Building in the Age of AI
(KCL, UK), 22nd August 2025
This discussion and networking session explores how communities can be built and sustained in the AI/Web3 era, bringing together the China–Britain AI Association, Way to AGI (open-source AI community), 706 London (grassroots community-building methods), and SmallWOD (a local founder/doer matching app). It features lightning talks, a practical panel, and mini-labs focused on building values-led communities, choosing the right on/off-chain “community stack,” and turning hype into real collaborations, with participants leaving with contacts and actionable next steps.
Raine Li is a representative of 706 London and co-founder of EAST2046, a curator and visual artist; Ting Wen is the regional General Manager of SmallWOD; Litong Zhou is the lead organizer of the 706 Virtual Reality Group, a journalist and researcher at Uncommons, and a PhD candidate (UCL) in the philosophy of technology; Yin Ying is an award winning AI film maker from Way to AGI; Sirui Bi is the co-founder of open source community LLM Quant; Aoran Sun is the founder of design-tech community AIDE+
