AboutTAxT

Taoyuan City is Taiwan’s leading industrial and technological hub and has been ranked as the #1 smart city in international evaluations. With its unique environment combining culture and technology, the Taoyuan City Government launched the TAxT – Taoyuan Art x Technology Festival in 2017 to develop a cultural-tech city. The festival integrates multiple goals, including internationalization, local engagement, campus cultivation, and industry collaboration.

Since 2019, the festival has further introduced the Taoyuan Tech Performing Arts Award to discover and nurture talent at the intersection of technology and performing arts. TAxT is currently one of the few large-scale tech-art festivals in Taiwan organized by a local government and has become an important platform for cross-disciplinary exchange between technology and the arts.

 

Director’s Preface

 

 

Amid the rapid onward of technological evolution, mankind’s imagination towards “life” is navigating into an unprecedented new horizon. With the theme “New Type: Hybrid Evolution · Future Life,” the 2025 Taoyuan Art x Technology Festival focuses on the exploration and interpretation of future life forms. From robotics and artificial intelligence to biomimicry, the fierce development of technology has long ceased to be merely imaginative scenes in those sci-fi movies; it is, step by step, emerging into our daily lives.This year, as the exhibition theme suggested, TAxT aims to provoke reflection: as technology gradually approaches the boundaries of “life,” how would we re-consider the relationships between humans and machines, and between the natural and the artificial, in the world of the future? As a major technology industry hub in Taiwan, Taoyuan has always kept a close eye on developments of cutting-edge technologies. Now in the ninth year since founding, TAxT continues to present innovative curatorial perspectives as well as to provide an international conversation platform and further demonstrates how art can guide human beings sparking new imagination and deep reflection through technological transformation. For the ninth TAxT festival, 13 artists and groups from Taiwan, Japan, Argentina, Australia are invited to explore three main curatorial subthemes—“Chimeric Cyborgs,” “Hybrid Creation,” and “Virtual Life.” From discussion of body, consciousness and environment, a profound conversation across the boundaries of science and art is thus initiated. While these topics may seem avant-garde, they are heavily associated with our everyday lives. Whether it is children using AI tools in classrooms, robotic vacuums at home, or smartwatches monitoring our health condition, technology has long integrated into our daily conduction.It is our hope that through creativity and imagination, these seemingly distant and estrange “future” issues would be more accessible, easily understood, and sentimental resonant to the audience. Moreover, the open and diverse spaces of the Chung Yuan Cultural and Creative Park encourage audiences of all ages to step in for exploration and new experience. This year several fascinating interactive installations and educational programs are also featured in the festival, allowing both adults and children to enjoy themselves while reflecting on how technological development may shape future lifestyles when visiting the exhibition.“New Type” is not merely an imagination of future humanity but rather a reflection on contemporary living conditions and values. As technology begins to involve in defining and evolving human life, subsequently art plays an indispensable role as both observer and interlocutor, guiding us through the flood of information and helping us seek new ethical frameworks and cultural positioning. We sincerely invite you to join this annual celebration where technology and art encounter each other, and to look forward to the infinite possibilities of future life with us.