The show is a remix of a similar sensory mash-up under the same title Lavelle has staged in London twice, first at the Haunch of Venison gallery in 2010, and then at St Michael's Church in Camden Town last year. A collection of multimedia installations, it's a collision of music, art, photography and fashion, with each artist creating a piece inspired by part of Lavelle's musical output.

And quite an output it is: Lavelle started as an event promoter in the 1980s in his native Oxford aged 15, was running pioneering label Mo' Wax while still a teenager, and is perhaps best-known for founding the ultra-eclectic act UNKLE, for which he has collaborated with influential figures such as Radiohead's Thom Yorke, the Stone Roses' Ian Brown and DJ Shadow.

Lavelle describes the Hong Kong edition of 'Daydreaming' as 'a very conscious continuation' of what happened in London. Some of the artists are the same, such as American graffiti artist Futura 2000; 3D (aka Robert Del Naja) of Massive Attack; and Doug Foster, who is contributing a characteristically brooding, hallucinogenic video installation for the show.

But this time they're joined by stars of the Chinese contemporary art world including the wackily disturbing Cang Xin, the playfully political Huang Rui, and Li Wei, with his gravity-defying visual shock tactics.

Add in other offerings including the colour-saturated, hyper-real photography of Australia's Polly Borland, an installation by Turner Prize nominee Nathan Coley, and video art from the likes of local stars Wing Shya and Daniel Wu, and the show certainly doesn't want for risk-taking eclecticism.

Staging such an ambitious exercise in cultural synaesthesia is a logical progression of what both artists have long been doing. Lavelle's music has always not so much hopped genres as rendered them irrelevant, plus he's released albums inspired by films, and before 'Daydreaming' had collaborated with an exhibition of art works inspired by the UNKLE album War Stories.

Previous Birch shows such as 2010's 'Hope and Glory', a multimedia spectacular also staged at ArtisTree, have likewise explored the collaborative area of intersection between various art forms. Birch, a former DJ, regularly flew Lavelle to Hong Kong to perform at his rave parties, which is how the pair became friends.

'I want to create something that's got very few boundaries, with lots of styles and lots of disciplines, that will hopefully appeal to lots of people without the sterility of the traditional gallery experience,' says Lavelle. 'It's about artists reacting to music that you've made for them in various different ways - some are abstract, and some are more direct.'

Birch is lavish in his praise of his co-curator. 'He doesn't fit into any of the categories people usually have. He's a creative typhoon of energy - there's just energy swirling around him. He thinks so differently from most people.'

The show's journey to Hong Kong, he adds, 'has been quite an organic process. I was invited to be in it in London, because James was an old friend, and I liked the feel of it - it had a fresh, raw spirit. It was outside the rigid gallery system in London.'

The show was pitched to Swire, who gave the duo the use of ArtisTree. However, by January this year the show was close to being cancelled due to the lack of a sponsor, but the property company agreed to step into that role as well.

That only left a few months to do a great deal of the work; Lavelle has made a couple of trips to Hong Kong to meet the local artists participating in the show, but much of the curatorial collaboration has taken place remotely.

It also meant reducing the roster of artists from about 40 to about 30, losing a few big names in the process.

'Every project we do is a fight,' says Birch. 'Trust me: for every project I do, there are five I'd like to do but can't. Clearly I'm doing projects that are on a museum scale, but I have no museum of my own. Maybe I'm stupid.'

Birch says the dearth of similarly ambitious projects in Hong Kong has its pluses as well as its minuses. 'Whatever you do as an artist here is new. In New York and London, there are rigid structures and platforms - you go to a certain college, you show your work, you get picked up by a gallery. There are none of those things in Hong Kong. It means you can make your own rules, but you don't get offered opportunities here. You have to create your own shows - no one is going to do it for you.

'It's not necessarily good for you, producing exhibitions - it's distracting from producing art.'

With that in mind, Birch and three partners recently founded community-minded and innovation-slanted arts promotion organisation Future Industries, which director Robert Peckham describes as a product of 'the changing cultural ecology of Hong Kong'. Its long-term goal, he adds, is to open its own creative space in the centre of the city, which 'will be more like a museum than a gallery'.

Despite the challenges, Lavelle is relishing the prospect of putting 'Daydreaming' on again. 'It was brilliant last time,' he says, 'and it's exciting to be doing something in Hong Kong, especially working with local artists. I love working in Asia, and I've been a fan of Hong Kong for a long time.' He dreams of taking the show to other cities. 'Hopefully it'll grow into a travelling festival.'

The best thing about it, Lavelle says, is seeing the work that his music has inspired.

'Lots of times people have blown me away. It's always so special to get a great piece, with all the work that's gone into it. I'm just astounded at the fact that people have been so supportive and so into it.'

'Daydreaming with ... the Hong Kong Edition', May 4-Jun 7, 10.30am-7pm, ArtisTree, 1/F Cornwall House, TaiKoo Place, Quarry Bay, free. daydreamingwith.com