Justin Wong Chiu Tat, graduated from the Department of Fine Arts, CUHK, in 1996, and obtained his Master of Arts in Interactive Digital Media in the UK in 2003. Upon his return to Hong Kong, Justin worked as an Instructor at the School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong. He became the Art Director in an interactive media company, yU+Co.[lab] in 2007-08. He has a regular political comics column in Ming Pao Daily since 2005.
黃照達，1996年畢業於香港中文大學藝術系，2003年於英國修畢互動數碼媒體的碩士課程。回港後於香港城市大學創意媒體學院出任導師。 2007-08年間於互動媒體公司yU+Co [lab] 擔任美術總監一職 ，其時事政治漫畫專欄《嘰嘰格格》從2005年起於《明報》刊登。
Hamlet Lin is an art teacher trying to blur the boundary between art, science and technology. His current researches include cellular automata, ant behaviors and genetic programming. He is now a part time lecturer in the School of Creative Media and a media engineer in Yu+Co.[lab].
林耀邦是一位嘗試去打破藝術，科學及科技的界線的教師。近期研究項目包括 細胞自動機 ,螞蟻行為與及基因規劃等。林曾任香港城市大學創意媒體學院之客席講師，現為互動媒體公司yU+Co.[lab]之媒體工程師。
Eva Schindling (Austria) received her MSc. from Chalmers University in Sweden. In the interdisciplinary world of art and technology, she creates hardware and software solutions demonstrating different artificial life phenomena such as emergence, complexity and evolutionary adaptation. Her work has been shown at the Japan Media Arts festival, Finland’s Live Herring exhibition and the Ars Electronica.
Eva Schindling（奧地利）於瑞典的 Chalmers University 取得理學碩士。她嘗試透過對電腦軟件及硬件的研發，表達人工智能範疇中不同的現象，如衍生(emergence), 複雜性(complexity)及演化／改造（evolutionary adaptation)等。她的作品曾於日本的媒體藝術節，芬蘭以及奧地利的 Ars Electronica 展出。
Txt-Me-1st
Txt-Me-1st is a response to the generative process of spam messages we received daily. While people are trying hard to prevent them from entering their mailbox, there is much creativity in the way spam messages are composed in order to avoid being caught by anti-spam programs. The most common methods are the use of misspell words and trimming down of the whole sentences into keywords only. The final messages often end up with sentences that look completely random and fragmented, and yet readable in a certain sense.
Here is an example,
“of pure silver. This degradation, therefore, in the value of the money rents lesbian first time stories labour to learn, than in a month’s industry, at an ordinary and obvious hsnrihvjdrj”
Txt-Me-1st is inspired by the evolution of this new “writing method”. It shares a lot of similarities with some early text-based new media art in terms of the “randomness” and “emptiness” revealed in the works. It also reminds us of the playful and the rebellious nature in DaDa’s phonetic poetry in the early 20th century. Txt-Me-1st tries to adopt a similar approach which also highlights the “emptiness” and “nonsense” found in the writing process in the computer age. By implementing the influence of the ambient environment and the interactions between digital text projection and the old typewriter’s mechanical arms, visitors are witnessing how their message is decomposed and recomposed as if they are visiting an underground factory producing pirate DVDs.
Txt-Me-1st can be seen as an experience generator rather than just a computational machine that writes on its own. It tries to emphasize the playful experience between writing (sending text message) and reading (receiving spam message). It is also experimenting a new way of audience participation by turning the museum into a remote factory where audience can take part in the work in anywhere provided they have a mobile phone with them.
While everyone is struggling to deal with spam messages every day, we can now “order” our own.
Simply text me first…
Txt-Me-1st是對「垃圾訊息」的衍生過程的一種回應。當我們每天都拼命地防止它們進入我們的電子郵箱時， 我們都忽略了這些「垃圾訊息」當中其實隱藏著許多極富創意的地方。明顯例子就是那些為了不想被防垃圾電郵程式(Anti-spam program)過濾而演變出來的書寫形式。如刻意使用錯別字，以及把句子栽減以至剩下關鍵字等，令原文變成完全隨機但同時又可以大致理解的文字符號。
舉例：
“of pure silver. This degradation, therefore, in the value of the money rents lesbian first time stories labour to learn, than in a month’s industry, at an ordinary and obvious hsnrihvjdrj”
Txt-Me-1st 其中一個創作靈感很大程度來自這種新的「書寫方法」。跟早期一些和文字有關的新媒體藝術作品一樣，它們都同時表現了電腦書寫中那種「隨機性」與「虛空感」，同時，也與二十世紀初達達主義時期語音詩 (phonetic poetry) 那充滿玩味及對文字反叛的本質不謀而合。 Text-Me-1st正正就是希望藉此路向去重塑電腦自動書寫那種「隨機性」與「無意義」。透過引入現場的環境因素與及投射文字與機械零件的互動，觀眾將目睹原有訊息如何被拆解及重組。感覺就如親身參觀盗版光碟的地下製作工場一樣，將不為人知的製作程序公諸於世。
Txt-Me-1st 著重觀眾經驗的產生多於對電腦作為自動書寫工具的研究。它重點在於發掘「寫作」（發送短訊）與「閱讀」（接收短訊）之間一段有趣的經驗與可能性。同時，它也嘗試去發展一種新的觀眾參與形式。透過手機，觀眾將可隨時隨地參與作品與及改變博物館的現場環境。在傳送與接收之間，帶給觀眾無限的想像。
當所有人都忙於安裝防垃圾電郵程式時 ，我們現在可以主動參與創作一個個人的「垃圾訊息」。
最簡單的方法：先發給我一個短訊！
