Join interdisciplinary collective Encor Studio for a captivating dialogue with deTour 2025 curator Adonian Chan. Delve into the studio's pioneering work, where architecture, sound, and technology converge to create immersive installations that explore the delicate interplay between presence and absence.
This session will unpack Encor's collaborative alchemy, revealing how they transform physical spaces into dynamic instruments of perception. Discover how they employ technology not as spectacle, but as a poetic tool to heighten our sensory awareness, and how minimalist aesthetics can forge profound emotional resonance. The conversation will also address the critical balance of navigating commercial imperatives while safeguarding creative integrity in today's design landscape.
Adonian Chan, Hong Kong-based type designer, graphic designer and design curator.
He has been researching Hong Kong Beiwei and digitising it into “Zansyu” font since 2011, and co-authored the book “A Study on Hong Kong Beiwei Calligraphy & Type Design” alongside design editor Ire Tsui in 2018. Documenting eight years of research on Hong Kong Beiwei and his type design “Zansyu”, the publication earned the Grand Award and the Distinguished Publishing Awards at the 2019 Hong Kong Publishing Biennial Awards. The type design also received accolades, including the Typeface Design Award from the New York Type Directors Club and the Excellent Work from the Tokyo Type Director’s Club.
Adonian was the recipient of the 2019 DFA Hong Kong Young Design Talent Award. He has been invited to speak at various notable events, including Apple Hong Kong, Typographics New York City, Letterform Archive San Francisco and Dongdaemun Design Plaza in Seoul. His work has been widely covered by media outlets such as Idea Magazine (Japan) and CNN (US). He also co-curated the Hong Kong design festival deTour in both 2020 and 2021, and he is the curator for deTour 2024.
Encor Studio was established in 2016 by Swiss audiovisual artists Mirko Eremita, David Houncheringer, Manuel Oberholzer, and Valerio Spoletini. Together, they bring a diversity of sensibilities and skills that define the studio’s distinctive identity and collective vision. Blending technology with lo-fi materials, developing bespoke tools, and experimenting with music scales, Encor Studio follows an ongoing pursuit in which beauty takes centre stage. Their practice foregrounds the symbolic resonance of light and sound, merging technology with the physicality of space. By making hidden information perceptible—interwoven with our physical and social environments—they invite new ways of seeing an ever-changing world that, like light itself, escapes our grasp.
Working across kinetic sculpture, architecture, installation, and sound visualisation, the studio persistently tests the boundaries of perception. Using mirrors, digital imagery, creative coding, data, water, and sound waves, they construct experiences in which spatial and material qualities assume unexpected forms. As viewers’ mental states shift, reality becomes warped—both literally and metaphorically—prompting contemplation of the human condition. This dynamic interplay between perception and concept captures transient moments that chart the studio’s exploratory path.
In its most recent phase, Encor Studio embraces a reductionist philosophy—subtracting rather than adding, allowing light and surroundings to take precedence. By embracing locally sourced materials and energy efficiency, the studio articulates a quiet resistance to uniformity and excess.