On-site at Flow of time——David Claerbout and Zhou Tao, The Cloud Collection, 2025-26: Zhou Tao, The Rib of the Greater Bay Area (2025-2026), Single channel 4K HD video (16:9, color, with two-channel stereo), 70min, Commissioned by M+, Hong Kong. ©The Cloud Collection

The video captures a series of fragmented coastal scenes scattered across the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area: a security guard on duty at a Shenzhen beach, a woman posing for bridal photos along the West Kowloon Waterfront Promenade, children playing in the shallows beneath a bridge, the transparent glass interior of the M+ Museum, the rooftop of Sky100, the upper reaches of the Pearl River, and the waterfront of Victoria Harbour in Hong Kong, among others. Most of these filming locations were chosen from lists of photogenic sites popular on Xiaohongshu (RedNotes), i.e. places that have become "internet-famous" through a single viral post, attracting waves of photographers and tourists.

Zhou Tao Video still from The Rib of the Greater Bay Area (2025-2026) Single channel 4K HD video (16:9, color, with two-channel stereo) 70minCommissioned by M+, Hong Kong. Image courtesy of the artist. © artist

Yet the artist deliberately diverges from these original images, turning away from the sharply defined details and edges of these celebrated sites. Instead, the camera retreats into marginalized zones at the limits of visibility, areas suffused with blinding halos of light. The first part of the film preserves on-site sound record-ings, while the later sections incorporate soundscapes sampled from bridges that span rivers and seas, from river signal buoys, naval communication towers, hydroelectric facilities, and the resonant vibrations within the glass walls of skyscrapers.

On-site at Flow of time——David Claerbout and Zhou Tao, The Cloud Collection, 2025-26: Zhou Tao, The Rib of the Greater Bay Area (2025-2026), Single channel 4K HD video (16:9, color, with two-channel stereo), 70min, Commissioned by M+, Hong Kong. ©The Cloud Collection

Commissioned for the M+ Facade project, the film is projected on a monumental LED screen (65 meters high and 110 meters wide) covering the museum's entire south-facing wall. Acting like a vast louver over the building's glass surface, the screen embodies a futuristic vision that mirrors the perspective from the Sky100 Observation Deck above. The screen becomes the film's point of departure, a perspective first conceptualized through the view of water framed by the louvered window. The camera's gaze first reaches toward the distant horizon, then withdraws behind the building's facade, tracing a circular motion toward the image's outermost limit.

As the film unfolds, it resembles a continuous scroll of shifting landscapes. Yet the further the camera moves toward the boundary of represen-tation, the more abstract and unstable the imagery becomes, echoing the low growls and cracks within the cavernous body of the monumental architecture. As radiant light seeps through the gap between the blades, time folds inward, trapping the crowd in a compressed space-thrilling, crowded, transparent, and intensely enclosed.

——Artist statement

Commissioned by M+, Hong Kong

Image courtesy of the artist © artist

Series Paintings

On-site at Flow of time——David Claerbout and Zhou Tao, The Cloud Collection, 2025-26: Zhou Tao, From left to right: [1]Red-flowered Camel's Foot on Portland Street, 2024, Acrylic on linen, 100 × 100 cm [2]Solar Flare Inverts Eagle Beak Mountain, 2025, Acrylic on linen, 100 × 80 cm [3]Amplified Bay of Giant Rock, 2025, Acrylic on linen, 100 × 80 cm [4]3'21'' at Ocean Park Hong Kong, 2025, Acrylic on linen, 80 × 100 cm [5]Fingertips Swipe Ap Lei Chau, 2025, Acrylic on linen, 100 × 100 cm ©The Cloud Collection

Zhou Tao, Red-flowered Camel's Foot on Portland Street, 2024, Acrylic on linen, 100 × 100 cm Courtesy of the Artist and Vitamin Creative Space.

Zhou Tao, Solar Flare Inverts Eagle Beak Mountain, 2025, Acrylic on linen, 100 × 80 cm  Courtesy of the Artist and Vitamin Creative Space.

Overexposed Landscape of Yingzui Moutain(Chiwan), with inverted pink digital flare.

——Artist statement

Zhou Tao, Amplified Bay of Giant Rock, 2025, Acrylic on linen, 100 × 80 cm Courtesy of the Artist and Vitamin Creative Space.

Brightness gain and color gain fall out of balance in Dashiwang Bay.

——Artist statement

Zhou Tao, 3'21'' at Ocean Park Hong Kong, 2025, Acrylic on linen, 80 × 100 cm Courtesy of the Artist and Vitamin Creative Space.

Ocean Park, Wong Chuk Hang. When the camera is completely out of foucus—almost entirely losing the outlines and volume of objects, leaving only the response to light—the dozens of coated lenses inside the barrel still strive to absorb, split, and compress the light. This process resembles the extraction and reconstruction of an architectural illusion made of light. The deep and interwoven aquarium structures inside the Oceanarium seem to echo this illusion.

——Artist statement

Zhou Tao, Fingertips Swipe Ap Lei Chau, 2025, Acrylic on linen, 100 × 100 cm Courtesy of the Artist and Vitamin Creative Space.