Since last autumn, Eve Tam Mei-yee, curator of modern art at the Museum of Art which is hosting the series, and local artist Ellen Pau, a veteran new media artist who prefers to call herself a creative engineer, have been engaged in discussions, brought together by the series' first show, Digit@logue, which opens on May 16.

'It was important to have independent curators look at what government curators considered important for the community but also to interpret the art in a new way,' Tam says. 'In addition, we didn't have a big budget so the guest curators would find it difficult to commission all new works.'

In total, these exhibitions will span a year. After a short break, a new Dialogue series will feature both international and Hong Kong artists, to be organised by an overseas curator who is yet to be named.

Pau's show is an exploration of the many ways that art and technology interweave today. 'Through Ellen's exhibition, we realised the museum has been quite conservative in collecting media art,' says Tam. And it has meant 'we have not had a chance to do any large-scale exhibitions before. I think it is time for a breakthrough.'

For Pau, the founder of Hong Kong new media artists' collective Videotage in 1985 and key player in the Microwave International New Media Arts Festival, Open Dialogue has provided her first opportunity to work with a mainstream museum in Hong Kong. 'I have really enjoyed the experience,' Pau says. 'I have never had so much time to research a show.'

It didn't take Pau too long to ascertain one of the reasons why the museum had never held a major media art exhibition using their collection before. Of 14,000 works in total, just a few came into the New Media Arts category and these were mainly seen in the Hong Kong Art Biennial catalogue the museum publishes annually that features many selected works. Several were unsuitable for her theme and the rest were not nearly enough to take up the venue space.

However, the museum was flexible on the inclusion of other works along with its own.

'We have tried to be as open as we could so the guest curators can say what they want to say,' Tam says. 'The shows do not have to work to the strength of our collection. We have not asked guest curators just to follow the line set by our previous curators but to point out the lack or gap.'

The only other main criterion imposed was that guest curators should not include any of their own pieces in their show.

'There should be a curatorial distance. If curators include works of their own, that distance is erased,' Tam says.

Looking further afield, Pau drew in artists from inside and outside Hong Kong to illustrate a broad range of art and technology works, including time-based moving images, video installation and virtual Chinese ink painting.

Among the creators are Qiu Anxiong with a landscape animation and Kingsley Ng's musical loom.

'I hope to put away prejudice against technology and to increase understanding from a critical point of view as to how an artist is using technology,' says Pau, whose full-time job as a radiographer feeds into her artistic endeavours by keeping her up to date with technological developments.

'If you see technology in art, you should not be afraid of it.'

With the support and encouragement of Tam and other museum staff, she also struck out further, selecting controversial pieces that some would consider more science than art.

One is the work of award-winning radiologist Fung Kai-hung, from Pamela Youde Nethersole Eastern Hospital. Fung creates tomography art, artistic images of the human body derived from CT scans, and last year jointly gained first place for photography in the 2007 Science and Engineering Visualisation Challenge, sponsored by Science magazine and the US National Science Foundation.

Pau received support in pushing boundaries from the museum team and, in turn, she was able to share her specialised knowledge regarding the logistics required to run such an exhibition.

First, the equipment required needs to be located. Videos, projectors, screens, computers, all need to be hired, sometimes in large quantities. For Video Circle, a work from Zuni Icosahedron, Pau had to find 32 identical televisions.

Quality is important to create the effect the artist desires, which often means having to pay more. All machines also need to be maintained to avoid exhibit breakdowns.

'It is a new field for us and, to be frank, we don't have the expertise,' says Tam. 'Working with Ellen is a good chance for us to learn.'

At the start, Tam says she had wondered whether the two would find they were speaking same language. Pau, too, was concerned about the forms and bureaucracy, given her usual ad hoc working style.

However, the easy camaraderie that has developed between the pair and the support they have been able to offer each other would seem to indicate that Hong Kong's official and independent art sectors can engage in constructive conversation to the benefit of the city's cultural evolution as a whole.

Digit@logue, from May 16 to July 20. Hong Kong Museum of Art. Daily, 10am-6pm, Sat until 8pm, closed Thu, 10 Salisbury Rd, TST, HK$10, free on Wed. Inquiries: 2721 0116