Apple sessions to showcase tech presenting local Beijing culture

Photographers, artists, musicians and app developers will share their experience on how to present the local culture of Beijing with new technology at Apple's retail outlet at Sanlitun from April 16 through June 6.

The twelve "Today at Apple" sessions under the theme of "Beijing Creative Stories" will particularly feature the melding of tradition and innovation to express the vibrancy and ingenuity of the capital city.

Guest speakers invited include the Palace Museum's photographer Zhu Kai and app developer Kang Xiaolu. Both of the young creators have been capturing beauty and cultural connotations of architecture and collections from the Forbidden City and turning them into visual forms that appeal to young audiences active online.

Visual designer Sun Yong will introduce his childhood memories related to carpentry and the process his team used to create the app Wood Joints in 2014, one presenting the traditional mortise and tenon structures widely used in wooden furniture and ancient architecture in three-dimensional animations.

Peking Opera accompaniment player Xie Guangrong and musician Tulegur Gangzi from Hulunbuir, Inner Mongolia autonomous region, will separately try to fabricate temperament and expression of traditional music forms on modern mobile devices.

Two of the sessions, with illustrator Big Orange and the band Radio Mars, will be held online.

"Today at Apple" programs, launched in 2017, are free hands-on sessions about photo and video, music, coding, art and design held at offline Apple stores, and in some cities there will be local artists, photographers, musicians and other creative workers sharing their work based on iPhone, iPad and Mac application scenarios. Former sessions related to photography are most welcomed in the programs.

"We look forward to re-introducing in-store sessions in more cities and countries around the world as local health conditions improve," says Deirdre O'Brien, Apple's senior vice-president of Retail + People.

Registration for the sessions are available on Apple's official website since Saturday.