Melting Suns on the Screen /DE SARTHE Gallery /Hong Kong /Aug 31 – Sept 28, 2024 / As a preamble to his exhibition Melting Suns on the Screen, Liao Jiaming set up The Arcana Intelligent (2023), an interactive installation meant to simulate interactions with a sacred digital entity. Participants visiting de Sarthe Gallery sat or knelt on a cushion placed on the gallery’s floor, looking up at a nude, seemingly genderless avatar. Its barrel chest and awkwardly outstretched arms gave it an inhuman quality. Behind it was a vast vista of urban towers – blocky, dense, unclear whether they were part of an idealised, futuristic cityscape or a place at the end of civilisation. The avatar and participant spoke to one another, their brief interactions culminating in a question posed by the visitor, the bigger the better. Silicon and software cogitations would yield an oracular response in the form of a dynamically generated tarot card. Do this on the right day and someone, such as artist Amy Tong, was present to decipher the image and …