_________________________________Overview___________________________________
Since the beginning of 2011, we have created a series of Augmented Reality (AR) art projects concerning Chinese cultural spirit and identity, as well as current social, political issues in China in the Global Era, by collaborating with Boston based new media artist John Craig Freeman, a founding member of Manifest.AR.
Some images of our Augmented Reality work are derived from our earlier videos and virtual reality projects. The images, superimposed onto physical reality by mobile phone software, now function as ‘site-specific-virtual-sculpture’ that become part of a particular environment. Perceived through the mobile phone screen, the relationships between the imagery we create and the physical surroundings generate new implications.
___________________________________Projects__________________________________
Augmented Reality I:
Butterfly Lovers at Times Square
Mobile Phone Screenshots of Butterfly Lovers Augmented Reality art at Times Square, NYC
Visualization of Butterfly Lovers augmented reality at Times Square, NYC
Credit: Painting by Lily & Honglei, Augmented Reality by John Craig Freeman, Documentation by Will Pappenheimer and John Craig Freeman
Year of Production: 2009-2011
Medium: Oil on paper, Augmented Reality application for mobile phone
Augmented Reality Installation Locations:
1) Times Square in New York, U.S.
2) Boston Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA), U.S, during Boston Cyberart Festival 2011.
3) Unseen Sculptures exhibition at Surry Hills, Sydney (as part of the Surry Hill Festival) and around the Melbourne CBD, Australia.
4) Mediating Place exhibition at Harbor Gallery, University of Massachusetts Boston, U.S.
Work Description: Derived from a popular Chinese folktale Butterfly Lovers (梁山伯与祝英台）regarded as the equivalent of Romeo and Juliet, the painted figures in traditional costumes are placed at Times Square in New York City. The site-specific Augment Reality installation addresses issues of Chinese diaspora and cultural identity, and visualizes the restless, roaming cultural spirit of the East hidden in western metropolis.
Integrating painting and mobile phone augmented-reality application, artists weave storytelling of Chinese folklore into a contemporary, global circumstance. The two layers are contradictory yet interpenetrated: while the Butterfly Lovers symbolizes perpetual repression of humanity and resistance in Chinese culture, the night scene of Times Square in Manhattan is an emblem of Americanism and consumerism. As Chinese immigrant artists, we have witnessed many tragic stories of our friends pursuing American dreams. Although being surrounded by crowds and dazzling material world, they live in isolation, and struggle to survive. Our own life experience and the fate of immigrants urge us to expose the situation through artworks. What is the real relationship between cultural spirit and material reality? This is the question raised by Butterfly Lovers.
** Launch Butterflly Lovers Layar application on mobile phone: http://www.layar.com/layers/butterflylovers
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Augmented Reality II:
Crystal Coffin - Virtual China Pavilion at Giardini, 54th.Venice Biennale
Mobile Phone Screenshot of Cyrstal Coffin - The Virtual China Pavilion
at St. Mark Square, AR Intervention at 54th. Venice Biennale
Visualization of Crystal Coffin - Virtual China Pavilion at Piazza San Marco,
by John Craig Freeman
Visualization of Crystal Coffin - Virtual China Pavilion at Gardini, 54th. Venice Biennale, by Lily & Honglei
Credit: Concept by Lily & Honglei, 3D modeling and augmente reality by John Craig Freeman
Year of Completion: 2011
Medium: Computer 3D Models, Augmented Reality application for mobile phone
Augmented Reality Installation Locations:
1) Gardini at Venice Biennale 2011, Italy
2) Not Here, The Samek Art Gallery at Bucknell University, PA
3) Not There, ISEA 2011 (International Symposium on Electronic Art) &12th Istanbul Biennial, Turky
4) DUMBO Art Festival 2011, Brooklyn NY
Work Description: The augmentation is inspired by the crystal coffin displayed in Mausoleum of Mao Zedong on Tiananmen Square since 1977, a year after Mao’s death. In the twenty first century, while China has been transforming itself into a modern society in many ways and gaining more influences economically and politically around the globe, Mao’s crystal coffin, the immortal-looking shell, remains exist as a symbol of authoritarian ruling system. During spring 2011, a crackdown on dissent – including detaining many intellectuals and members of religious group – followed by distinct signs of revival of Maoist policies, has left people baffled about the future direction of China. We therefore use Crystal Coffin of Mao as main body of the virtual China Pavilion topped with a tower and roof with ancient Chinese looking, as regulated by Ministry of Construction of China: architectural ‘designs must reflect traditional Chinese building styles’.
** Launch Crystal Coffin Layar application on mobile phone: http://www.layar.com/layers/crystalcoffin
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Augmented Reality III:
Great Firewall of China at Great Wall
Credit: 4gentlemen
Year of Completion: 2011
Medium: Computer generated 3D Models, Augmented Reality application for mobile phone
Augmented Reality Installation Locations: Great Wall of China
Inspiration from Great Firewall in virtual world art project 'Land of Illusion,' by Lily & Honglei 2008
Work Description: During the Qin Dynasty, Emperor Qinshihuang began building the Great Wall to keep northern nomads out of China. In the Internet age, China has invented the Great Firewall to block free thinking, to censor messages and images which criticize government policies and draw attention to violations of human rights, and to keep this activity from circulating in the blogosphere. While the ancient Great Wall of China is regarded as a wonder of human civilizations, the Great Firewall in cyberspace becomes the most sophisticated, extensive and notorious project preventing the world’s largest population from expressing themselves with contemporary technologies. How does this invisible wall impact the lives of people within China and beyond in the information era? (continue reading)
** Launch Great Firewall of China Layar application on mobile phone: http://www.layar.com/layers/firewall
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Augmented Reality IV:
Three Wise Monkeys: ‘Hear no evil, see no evil, and speak no evil’
Three Wise Monkeys at Sichuan, where earthquake smashed
poorly constructed school buildings to result death of thousands of students
Three Wise Monkeys at Aba County in Sichuan, where a Tibetan monk set himself ablaze
Three Wise Monkeys at eastern Zhejiang Province, where the popular village head
Qian Yunhui killed by a 'traffic accident'
Three Wise Monkeys at the scene subway trains crashed in Shanghai
Credit: 4gentlemen
Year of Completion: 2011
Medium: Computer generated images, Augmented Reality application for mobile phone
Augmented Reality Installation Locations:
1) Sichuan, Shanghai, Tibet, Zhejiang
2) The Art Of Placebo exhibition in association with Digital Arts Weeks 2011. Victoria Canada.
Work Description: Portraying Chinese dissent artist Ai Weiwei, the work ironically refers to principles of Three Wise Monkeys: ‘hear no evil, see no evil, and speak no evil,’ that arguably originates from Analects of Confucius: "Look not at what is contrary to propriety; listen not to what is contrary to propriety; speak not what is contrary to propriety; make no movement which is contrary to propriety" (非禮勿視，非禮勿聽，非禮勿言非禮勿動). Instead of reviving its original teaching of moral value, the authorities adopt Confucianism in order to constrain freedom of speech in China in the 21st century. (continue reading)
** Launch Great Firewall of China Layar application on mobile phone: http://www.layar.com/layers/threewisemonkeys
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Augmented Reality V:
Southeast Flies the Peacock at Chinatown, Los Angles
Visualization of Southeast Flies the Peacock & Mad Drummer Mi Heng, in Chinatown Los Angles, CA
Credit: paintings by Lily & Honglei, Augmented Reality by John Craig Freeman
Year of Completion: 2011
Medium: Computer generated images, Augmented Reality application for mobile phone
Augmented Reality Installation Locations: Chinatown in Log Angles, for College Art Association 2011, U.S
Work Description: The work assembles images of some most influential folktales of China, including Southeast Flies the Peacock, The Peony Pavilion, Lady White Snake, Death of GeneralYang Zaixing,and Cowherd and Weaving Maid, featuring tragic romances as well as epic heroes/heroins admired by Chinese people from generation to generation. In contrast to the the spiritual, legendary figures in the foreground, which are designed as ‘virtual sculptures’ through Augmented Reality application on mobile phone, the background is set at a highly commercial area of a metropolitan city – China Town. By comparing virtual and physical, ancient and modern, east and west, we question the longevity of Chinese culture’s spiritual traditions in the process of capitalization. (continue reading)
** Launch Great Firewall of China Layar application on mobile phone: http://www.layar.com/layers/southeastfliesthepeacock
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Augmented Reality VI:
Statue of Democracy & Tank Man at Tiananmen Square
Credit: 4gentlemen
Year of Completion: 2011
Medium: Computer 3D Models, Augmented Reality application for mobile phone
Augmented Reality Installation Locations:
1) Tiananmen Square, Beijing, China
2) Tahrir Square, Cairo, Egypt
3) Saint Mark Square, 2011 Venice Biennale (June 4th - November 27th), Italy
4) AR Occupy Wall Street, New York City, U.S
5) Boston Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA), U.S.
Work Description: Although it has been more than twenty years since Tiananman Protest took place in 1989, the authority persistently uses all means erasing the facts that Chinese people pursued democracy in this democratic and anti-corruption movement. In China, nowadays, young people are not aware the courageous actions, such as 'Tank Man' and erecting 'Statue of Democracy' facing Mao's portrait on Tiananman Tower, emerged during student movement of 1989. Nonetheless, history should not be forgotten.
Information and communication technologies have inspired people to express their thoughts freely. We as artists, taking advantages of the development of mobile phone technology and smartphone applications, have revived the history of 1989 Tiananman Protest that has tremendous implications waiting for further examinations by our contemporaries. (continue reading)
_______________About International Artist Collective 'Manifest.AR'
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http://www.manifestar.info
Manifest.AR is an international artists’ collective working with emergent forms of augmented reality as interventionist public art. The group sees this medium as a way of transforming public space and institutions by installing virtual objects, which respond to and overlay the configuration of located physical meaning. Utilizing this technology as artwork is an entirely new proposition and explores all that we know and experience as the mixture of the real and the hyper-real.’ Physically, nothing changes, the audience can simply download and launch an Augmented Reality Browser app on their iPhone or Android and aim the devices’ camera to view the world around them. The application uses geolocation, marker tracking and image recognition software to superimpose computer generated three-dimensional art objects, enabling the public to see the work integrated into the physical location as if it existed in the real world.’
The Manifest.AR collective and individual members have produced projects, exhibitions and interventions worldwide, including in New York, Venice, Istanbul, Beijing, Cairo, Copenhagen, Tokyo and Berlin. For more information, please visit: http://www.manifestar.info/, and http://manifestarblog.wordpress.com
©2011 - 2012 LILY & HONGLEI. All rights reserved. For further inquiries, please contact artists.