Innovation involves curiosity, experimentation, and exploring new perspectives, which is relevant in both technology and art. How is your invention an evolving art?
Prof. Dennis Lo (Centre of Novostics)：Scientific breakthroughs often begin with a single observation — like the detection of fetal DNA in maternal blood — but their true potential unfolds through persistent questioning. Working together with a dedicated team, we spent years developing methods to interpret this discovery, test its limits, and translate it into clinical tools. The process mirrors an artist refining a technique: early prototypes may fail, but each iteration teaches you how to see the problem differently. Patents and papers are milestones, but what truly matters is how these tools evolve. For example, our team has since built on this foundational work to explore applications in cancer detection and other areas, reinterpreting the original “canvas” to address new challenges. Science, like art, is never static — it grows when we remain open to reimagining what’s possible.
Sylvine Wong (BSFI)：We view technology as a means to enhance our lives, and like art, there is a continual desire to discover and prove the imaginable into reality. When people first learned of our concept of upcycling food waste to construct homes, the connection between these ideas seemed very irrelevant. This may be true until you begin to see them as interconnected resources that can benefit from each other’s supply and demand – the city’s need for construction materials and the pressing issue of food waste in our community.
So for this project, how did you incorporate the technological elements into your storytelling through photography?
Wing Shya: While shooting the BSFI insects, I was drawn to the whole circle of life concept, where destruction and creation are unavoidable and crucial elements of natural harmony. Using a Chinese calligraphy painting approach, I wanted to capture the transformation in each stage, drawing parallels between the composed breakdown of the insects and the formation changes of mist into a cloud or the ripple on a lake.
Some other materials, like the battery film in the GRST labs, it was melting so fast that there was little or no “concrete” subject left for me to narrate. So, I had to shift the focus to the actual movement, such as the dissolution or the change of form from solid to liquid, as the main storyline. Not everything has to have a story arch to be considered worth storytelling. We can allow things to be exactly what they appear to be and accept that as the full picture.
