20 March - 2 May 2026
Opening reception: 19 March 2026, 6 - 9 pm, performance by welainej
Square Street Gallery is pleased to present ‘HEX STATE SERVER,’ Brandon Tay’s first solo exhibition in Hong Kong, curated by Institution of Niche and Rafi Abdullah. The exhibition will run from 20 March - 2 May 2026. At the core of ‘HEX STATE SERVER’ is the interplay between individual agency and destiny. It draws parallels between Chinese divination and computation, probing the relationship between randomness and fate.
Within the exhibition, visitors engage in a collaborative, asynchronous fortune-telling session. An interactive sculpture connects them to the HEX STATE SERVER, an oracle simulation operating through the logic of I-Ching. Through interacting with the sculpture, visitors activate the simulation which cycles through 64 hex-states: 64 micro-fictions/ micro-environments that function as situational descriptions of a world, object, technology or condition. The HEX STATE SERVER touches upon the randomness element present across divination and computational systems. By interlinking these systems, this suggests that the algorithm and divination are deeply intertwined.
Extending into the adjacent space, PHANTOM INDEX unfolds as a speculative timeline mapping the evolution of Chinese thought from history to speculative futures, positioning divination as a crucial element. The timeline presents Chinese divination, especially the I-Ching, as the world’s first digital system. Interpreting the I-Ching as a comprehensive modelling environment for information—ranging from state-level policy to personal fate—demonstrates its nature as a compressed abstraction of the world. This perspective compels us to question what information is contained within the system, and what is deliberately excluded. Such readings suggest that we have always been living within computation, just with upgraded processing. The timeline provides the cosmological framework that splinters into the 64 experiential states visitors encounter first, creating a reverse causality that mirrors divination’s own temporal logic.
Through these various layered historical and speculative lenses, Brandon Tay investigates Chinese cosmotechnics and the fundamental overlap/relationship that exists between chance and destiny.
