《Lives in the Grid 3.0 我們格外投入卻格格不入》【Fringe Festival 26】

We live in "a grid" —
or has "the grid" already lived in us?

Lives in the Grid 3.0 traces its origins to life artist Sharon Lau's original experimental work created during the City Contemporary Dance Company (CCDC) Choreography Mentoring Programme in 2023. Using the pervasive influence of social media on contemporary social behaviour as her point of departure, Lau delves into a deep exploration of identity, distance, and connection.

The first version was developed through an online open call for anonymous participants—individuals who had never met in real life but became linked through the virtual world. Lau drew inspiration from their differences in height, physique, and bodily structure, initiating a dialogue through movement. The 2025 work Lives in the Grid 2.0 continued this artistic inquiry, adopting the vocabulary of contemporary ballet as a new medium of exploration.

In this new 3.0 version, Lau further investigates the entanglement between humans and technology, placing dancers within an even tighter "grid." The grid is not only a symbol of spatial restriction; it reflects the psychological reality of our daily acts of scrolling, scanning, compressing the self, and reshaping our identities.

We try to

condense a universe into a single cell,

distorting the basics of how humans connect.

We hate the way a network scan

is now required

before we can call it "knowing."

We keep assuming the online world is virtual—

but it is merely an extension of the real one.

You are still only you.

After all the digital sketching,

what are you really busy with?

We live in a grid—

or has the grid already taken up residence in us?