The prestigious AAAI 2026 Conference was recently convened at Singapore from January 20 - 27, 2026. At one of its notable workshop titled "Consistency in Video Generative Models: from Clip to Wild (CVM)", the generative AI short film The Meeting, created by MA student Shiqin HOU from the Division of Arts and Machine Creativity (AMC) at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), stood out among the entries and was awarded Creative Gold Award in the Creativity Track. This achievement not only highlights AMC students' exceptional creativity but also serves as an exemplary case of AMC's dedication to the deep integration of art and cutting-edge technology.
Academic Recognition: Defining New Frontiers of Creation on the International Stage
The AAAI Conference is one of the most influential academic events in the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI), with highly-competitive workshops organized every year. The workshop "Consistency in Video Generative Models: from Clip to Wild" explores its thematic issue through three key dimensions: (1) Intra-clip world knowledge consistency, ensuring semantic and physical coherence within a single clip; (2) Inter-clip camera consistency, maintaining seamless content transitions across camera movements; and (3) Inter-shot element consistency, preserving the identity and attributes of characters, scenes, and styles across narrative fragments. A key highlight was the "Consistency Video Generation Competition", designed to advance and standardize evaluation methodologies for consistency in generative video models.
The Meeting: A Spatio-temporal Dialogue Between Traditional Aesthetics and Generative AI
The award-winning work, The Meeting, is an intricately conceived generative AI short film. Grounded in the aesthetic style of traditional Chinese silk painting, it tells the story of a spirited fox that "leaps out" from an ancient painting, leading a horse from the same artwork on a journey through Hong Kong's vibrant modern streets and the tranquil campus of HKUST, culminating in an encounter that transcends dimensions and cultural symbols.
The work directly addresses the core challenges of consistency in current video generation, from intra-clip physical rules to inter-shot element identity preservation, aligning precisely with the CVM workshop's very purpose. Technically, it successfully maintains the visual coherence of the characters (the fox and the horse) throughout the dynamic narrative, while seamlessly blending the artistic conception of classical painting with the digital lights and shadows of the urban landscape, ensuring narrative logic and self-consistency in the transition from virtual to real-world scenes.
"The success of this work lies not in the mere application of techniques, but in its organic unification of algorithmic logic and artistic expression through a clear narrative intent. It offers a highly instructive case study for understanding how AI can empower the contemporary storytelling of traditional culture." Hou stated that the creative process involved continuous "dialogue" and "calibration" with AI models, aiming to precisely deploy technology in service of a poetic expression that blends "ancient charm with the modern context".
AMC as an Academic Hub: Cultivating Creative Pioneers with Power to Harness Technology
Hou's top prize in the Creativity Track signifies broad recognition of the Division's research and pedagogical outcomes in the emerging interdisciplinary field of Machine-assisted Art Practice from the international community, standing no less than a bold testament of AMC's "Art-tech integration inspiring cross-boundary innovation" teaching model: not only offering cutting-edge courses covering generative AI, media / art theory, and interactive storytelling, but also encouraging project-based learning, inspiring students to explore the human expression and social connections behind technology.
The creation of The Meeting originated in this very environment, with the student translating their understanding of traditional Chinese culture and observation of urban space into creative directives and narrative logic that drove the AI models, ultimately producing a work that combines artistic depth with technical sophistication, illustrating AMC's goal of cultivating versatile creators who can wield advanced technology tools while possessing profound humanistic literacy and critical thinking.
Through yet another outstanding performance at an international competition, AMC has demonstrated its unique strength and capability in connecting artistic imagination with technological innovation. The Division remains committed to building an open, interdisciplinary and cross-domain collaborative platform, providing continued support to faculty members and students in pioneering explorations at the confluence of art and technology, incubating innovative solutions with cultural resonance and social impact, and bringing "Hong Kong stories" that fuse creativity and cutting-edge technology to a broader global stage.
