Lin Yutang, a master of Chinese culture, once wrote, “the best architecture is such when one is inside of it, he is unaware of where the nature ends and where art begins.” People congregate to gradually establish cities, soon drawing a boundary between urban areas and rural settlements. Space is planned for various functions and forms. Buildings are erected for people to make a living in there. Technology and science are sculpting people’s live with its inventing and intervening nature. As time goes by, leaving cultural traces behind in cities. Buildings carry the weight of time, crystallised an art witnessing the sun and the moon. The great creation of human beings where we live in, tangled with, then turns into cities and civilisation.

Microwave International New Media Arts Festival 2014 returns to our original settlements after exploring the possibilities for future habitats, mirroring life from the aspect of technology and science with a starting point from architecture, to contemplate on urban ecology. Video works Algorithmic Architecture and A Very Good City offer a key to the audience; the scenes of distorted streets and buildings in the former work suggests the dominating huge amount of data in people’s life when algorithm is right in trend, whereas in the latter one, the streets and space in our city captured by the camera play an distorted rhythm. What does it imply? And what does it attach to?

The scientific and technological intervention infuses a number of variables into the realm of architecture once the gate is widely opened. Buildings are no longer living space standing on the ground, instead they carry history, being examined and employed through spiritual and cultural perspectives and in the process of exploring multiple materials, structures and models. Goethe once said, “Architecture is the frozen music ; music is the flowing architecture…”, small-scale interactive installation HoloDecks utilises 3D printing and laser cutting technology, to combine music and augmented reality, and programmed an acoustic, visual, spatial scenes. When time, space and existence blend together, there creates a dialogue among the three works. The prototype of Fundamentals: Form-ContraForm creates space where viewers are immersed in to wander and experience, to fabricate the sense of infinity through materials and design, while at the same time subverts the concept itself. We all know everything is limited, from our resources, our life to our space. 「ADA」revolves around a blank space, like a 3D canvas, breaks through the conventional boundaries through a sphere floating in the space, allowing everyone to draw whatever they want to with this special pen. The interactive netting device of Hylozoic Series discusses the possibilities of living environments and echos the philosophic thought that every being has a life. Will future cities and architecture evolve into a second nature to embrace different forms of life?

Cities are built for human beings, the borders between which and villages are enforced by local policies. Art creations are referring to the laws of the nature and eco-balance in order to revert obstacles. Spatial installation Cell Cloud presents collaborative production, structured around native polygonal models, simulating similar models like beehives, birds migration, crystals, etc. Assembling digital fabrication technology and collaborative handcrafted strength to build brand-new spatial experience. Plant-in City goes back to the idea of contributing to the nature by investigating local ecological environment and technological developments, to spreading greens all over the city. Echoed by Urban Jungle , urban and rural areas are no longer separated in game screens whereas human beings disappear. Pick up a spot wherever Google can reach and let the forest takes over the land, triggering us to reflect on the important question: what do we cherish most when cities are left over with the nature and evacuated buildings constructed for and by human beings?

The exhibition is concluded by airy but powerful The tower of Babel. Multiple-layered communication is essential for a collectively constructed world in order to achieve a better future. “Living Architecture” is not a concept of a single building that can be erected in any city, but an aspiration, a study of life, city and culture. Last but not the least, we arrive at the conclusion, as uttered by Japanese contemporary architect Tadao Ando, “Architecture depends on the mind, and its second half comes from existence and spirit.”

God bless our city.

讀國學大師林語堂所寫：「最好的建築是這樣的，我們深處在其中，卻不知道自然在那裡終了，藝術在那裡開始。」人集結而群居，成了城，漸發展城郊分界，空間以不同功能形式規劃，座座建築立成，而我們則居於其中過活。科技科學則以其發明與介入的本質層層雕塑人們的生活，日復日環環相扣，結合而成的文化串留著城市的記憶，建築裝載著日子的輕重，成為悠久的記認。建築是見證日月的藝術品，人類偉大的創作，人活中其中，糾結千年，銳變成城市與文化。

2014年的微波國際新媒體藝術節，在探索人類未來棲息地的可能性以後，回歸原居地，以科技科學的角度去觀照人們的生活，由建築出發，探討城市生態。錄像作品「算計建築」和「變態兒童城市」均為觀者提供了一條門匙；前者畫面中那扭曲的街道與建築，隱喻當算計法門當道之下，人們的生活被大堆大堆數據主宰。後者鏡頭下的我城街道與空間，節奏異奇，刻劃的是什麼牽繫糾結的又是什麼。

城門大開後，科技科學的介入為建築注入不少變數，建築不單是一幢幢立在大地上的生活空間，它們攜帶著歷史，透過探索多樣的物料與結構模型，從精神與文化角度被觀看審視以至使用。歌德曾說：「音樂是流動的建築，建築是凝固的音樂」，小型互動裝置「幻象塔」以3D鐳切技術，糅合音樂與擴張實境技術，編程了一幕幕音感視效空間的可能性。當時間、空間與存在三者糅合，從物材與結構出發，三件裝置作品便能建構出簇新對話。「基本宮球」的裝置原型創造了空間，觀者在空間裡遊走經驗，透過物料與設計去營造無限感的同時亦在推翻無限的概念；我們都知道什麼都有限期，我們的資源我們的生命我們的空間。「ADA」則以全白空間為主軸，如一張三維畫紙，突破傳統界限，透過懸浮在空間內的球體裝置，讓每個人用這枝特別的筆去繪天繪地。而「萬物有生」以互動的地工織物綱狀裝置，探討生活環境的可能性，並雕琢出萬物有生命的想法，未來的城市與建築會否成第二自然去擁抱關懷生活生態？

城市為人而立，城鄉邊界因地因政策而成，藝術創作參照大自然定律並以生態平衡出發去嘗試逆轉關卡，集體空間裝置「蜂房」呈現群力創作，以原生多角模型成結構，倣傚類同模式如蜂巢、群鳥遷移、晶體等，結集數位構築技術與群體手工實力打造簇新空間經驗。而「綠城有愛」則以回饋大自然的想法為依歸，透過了解在地生態環境與科技發展，讓綠色在城市中遍地開花。「大城叢林」則對照而生，遊戲屏幕中的畫面城鄉不再相隔，然而人類卻消聲匿跡了。隨意選個谷歌去得到的地方，隨手讓叢林管治大地，想想我們的城市在沒有我們以後所餘下的大自然與因人而立的空城建築，要珍愛的到底是什麼？

最後以輕巧有力的「巴別塔」作結，同心合作創建的世界需要多重透達的溝通，希望塔才有機會觸碰蓬萊。好望閣不是一棟隨便在城市起建的單棟大樓，是一個願景，是對生活、城市、文化的反思。最後的最後，以日本當代建築大師安藤忠雄的名言留白，「建築的一半依賴於思維; 另一半則源自於存在與精神」。

天佑我城。