Echoes of the Tides

Bay Area Art and Technology Triennial

November 14 - December 14, 2025

Curators:
Hong Rongman, Naiyi Wang

On a planetary scale, the Bay Area is not merely a body of water but a cognitive interface. Here, the rhythm of tides, the recursion of algorithms, the sedimentation of memories, and the fluidity of boundaries intertwine, forming a continuously generating 'wet system'. The Triennial takes 'wet media' as its conceptual thread, rejecting static narratives in favour of probing the permeable, resonant, and diffused networks of life, technology, and perception. In this context, wet media embodies locality, interface, and diffusion, championing a 'decentralised logic of generation' that resists singular orders and linear causality, instead manifesting the world's multiple surges.

The Triennial's thematic framework unfolds through this logic: In 2025, "Saltwater, Turbulence, and Algorithmic Landscapes" departs from geographical and material dimensions to explore landscapes and memories co-shaped by water and data. In 2026, "Suspended Generations" focuses on liminal states between stability and flow, examining the possibility of maintaining agency within technological turbulence. In 2027, "Diffused Sensoria" enters a formless field of perception, contemplating symbiotic modes of intelligence and consciousness in a state beyond interfaces.

The Triennial unfolds across three interrelated chapters, each exploring a distinct dimension of this “wet” cognition. Rather than following a linear progression, these phases overlap and echo one another, reflecting the non-linear logic of the systems they engage.

Saltwater, Turbulence, and Algorithmic Landscapes

Navigating Uncharted Waters

Saltwater, Turbulence, and Algorithmic Landscapes situates the Pearl River Estuary as a critical zone of physical and cognitive transformation—a turbulent interface where ecological and digital systems intersect. Here, tidal patterns, data streams, and cultural memory generate a “wet cognition” that challenges anthropocentric worldviews. Artists and researchers act as sensory agents, recalibrating relations between nature, technology, and possible futures. Rejecting the notion of technology as a neutral tool, the exhibition posits it as a force embedded with local histories, subconscious patterns, and material tendencies—a natural-cultural actor in its own right.

The exhibition is structured across three thematic sections, each articulating a different facet of this hybrid reality:

I. Tidal Recursions

Rhythm serves as a foundational force in the formation of biological, social, and technical systems. This section explores rhythm as an infrastructural force—organising bodies, data, and energies into resonant systems. Artists engage the body as a rhythmic interface, creating feedback loops between breath and code, movement and signal. Works by Fei Jun, Shi Danqing, Zheng Da, and Miao Xiaochun translate natural energies, organic processes, and data flows into perceptual experiences—proposing a chronopolitics of ebb and flow.

II. Saltwater Memory

Salt preserves and corrodes; it is an agent of memory and erasure. This section reframes technological heritage through the lens of salt—a medium that crystallises, dissolves, and resurfaces. From data sedimentation and electronic ruins to virtual archives and algorithmic ghosts, artists such as Wang Zhigang, Feng Mengbo, Tian Xiaolei, and Huang Yue explore memory as a geological process. Their works engage not in nostalgia, but in a speculative archaeology of the future—a salt-dialectics of loss and re-emergence.

III. Liminal Currents

Borders are not lines but currents—zones of contact, negotiation, and generative friction. This section focuses on the estuarine condition as a paradigm for contemporary reality, where bodies, platforms, jurisdictions, and truths intersect and overlap. Artists like Zou Luyang, Qi Zhenzhen & Wang Yang, Wang Nan and Hong Rongman create porous, participatory environments that model alternative social and technological orders. Here, the margin becomes a core site of imagination—a space of strategic ambiguity and emergent worldmaking.