Pang Kuan

When I was about three years old, I first read Astro Boy picture books and was drawn to the darkness in their stories. Some people, upon reaching a certain stage in life, develop an impulse to shed the attributes of a natural human and evolve. I describe this impulse with a word I call “yangsheng”—an upward-striving life. I am one of those people: I want to have a mechanical body and experience physiological states and limits that natural humans cannot reach.

“Pop culture” and “fine art” should not be judged or separated. What we now call “fine art” may very well have been pop culture in its own era. I think everything should be unified under the term culture. For example, rock music used to be considered avant-garde within “pop culture,” but the emergence of computers and digital devices has changed how music is created. The audiovisual experience of electronic music has gradually replaced rock. Perhaps in a few years, rock itself will be defined as a form of “classical music.”

So in reality, what shapes culture is technology. It is the continuous advancement of science and technology that drives cultural transformation.