The Sound of Market 2026

升！升！聲！

這是我第一個的數據作品。20年前2006年，我想做一個關於香港的作品，我覺得金錢和經濟很能代表香港。我想沒有比股市更能代表香港的脈搏。我當時在想像，這些環繞我們每天的冷冰冰數字，可不可以以一種比較感性的方式轉達？那些億億聲的上落，轉化為音樂後會不會一樣激昂和跌宕？

20年前的做法是在Yahoo!財經上截圖，然後由openframeworks (C++)去閱讀圖表，然後轉化成音樂，當時以一個 Numpad 作為輸入介面，因為當年中環真的很多股票行地舖，在門口放了一個讓途人查詢股價。雖然現在可以用API，我刻意地使用了截圖的方法，從 tradeview 那裏粗暴地把圖表和數據節錄下來。至於介面，我以鋼琴代替。每一個黑和白鍵，都代表一隻股票。觀眾彈的不是音符，而是點唱音符所代表的公司。 最後以 Touchdesigner 編寫各種視覺效果，及以 Ableton Live 去生成音樂。

The Sound of Market 2026

This is my first data-driven artwork. Twenty years ago, back in 2006, I wanted to create a piece about Hong Kong. To me, money and the economy felt deeply representative of the city, and I believed nothing captured Hong Kong’s pulse better than the stock market. At the time, I wondered: could these cold, hard numbers that surround our daily lives be conveyed in a more emotional, poetic way? If those multi-billion-dollar market swings were converted into music, would they unfold into a melody just as dynamic—full of soaring highs, sharp plummets, and dramatic turns?

Twenty years ago, the process involved taking screenshots from Yahoo! Finance, using openFrameworks (C++) to read the charts, and translating that data into sound. I used a numeric keypad as the input interface—a nod to the street-level brokerage shops across Central back then, which placed keypads outside their doors for passersby to look up stock prices. Although APIs are easily accessible today, I deliberately stuck with the screenshot method, rawly capturing charts and data directly from TradingView.

As for the interface, I replaced the keypad with a piano. Every black and white key represents a specific stock. Rather than simply playing notes, the audience is effectively selecting and "requesting" the companies represented by those keys. Finally, TouchDesigner was used to code the visual effects, while Ableton Live generates the music.