Visit Artist Website: http://lilyhonglei.com

 

Virtual Environment, Video Capture/Edit by Lily & Honglei, Music by Zhenming Zhai (Philp Zhai)

video running time: 6'45"

 

DSL Cyber MoCA

by Lily & Honglei

DSL Cyber MoCA, the museum of contemporary art in Second Life is developed by Lily & Honglei (杨熙瑛, 李宏磊）, the artist team from Beijing, and sponsored by DSL Collection of Chinese contemporary art. The virtual environment is based on Lily & Honglei's earlier independent art project “Land of Illusion（太虚幻境)” constructed in the Online virtual world since 2006. It is intended to make social and cultural commentaries about virtual worlds, particularly through reinterpreting themes in Chinese folklore. The work reflects on globalization’s impact on the environment and on the individual, which often results in multi-layered cultural or personal identity. It explores displacement and the spiritually homeless who struggle to preserve traditional values. More importantly, the virtual world art project proposes solutions for preserving and re-evaluating cultural heritage with digital arts, and developing aesthetic traditions with new imaging techniques in the 21st century.

“Land of Illusion” is constructed in Second Life with virtual traditional Chinese architecture, where Lily & Honglei have created a series of virtual installations, multimedia presentations and online performances accomplished through cross-continent artist collaborations. It is a cultural meditation engaging history, philosophy as well as Chinese diaspora. The work examines the current economic development of China within the context of globalization, while simultaneously exploring the meaning of virtual online communities in terms of global dialogues as they relate to cultural roots and the fantasy of China. “Land of Illusion” also functions as a net-art platform aiming to fulfill the promise that the Internet is the direct continuation of Enlightenment thought, namely promoting cultural openness, decentralization and independent thinking. As Chinese contemporary artists, Lily & Honglei consider that these aspects are extremely relevant to art-making.

From 2006 -2008, “Land of Illusion” received support from several art and cultural institutions. In 2009, “Land of Illusion” is funded by DSL Collection of contemporary Chinese art. Lily & Honglei are redesigning and developing the virtual constructions to DSL Cyber Museum of Contemporary Art. DSL Collection and the artist team Lily & Honglei share the ownership of DSL Cyber MoCA.

 

 

The new constructions of DSL Cyber MoCA have following characteristics and implications:

I.DSL Cyber MoCA compiles all artworks in DSL Collection into the virtual space.

II.The museum is located within an international artist community on Second Life - “Arena Media Art Culture”, http://slurl.com/secondlife/Uqbar/250/196/15/

III.The virtual constructions of DSL Cyber MoCA realize ideas impossible in physical world. It is consisted of two presentation spaces:
- Underwater City (under ground level), where Painting & Print Gallery, Photography Gallery, Installation Gallery and Sculpture Gallery are located;

- Water Cube (sky level), where is the New Media gallery, exhibits include videos and interactive multimedia work.

IV. DSL Cyber MoCA is unique for its metaphorical and aesthetic approaches to the art, which is considered virtual environment design as well as an independent artwork by itself. Each virtual construction becomes a metaphor reflecting on the relations of humanity and environment:

- the Underwater City refers to the submerged historical sites in Three Gorges Dam area, therefore questioning the manmade environmental and cultural crisis;

- the New Media Gallery suspending in the air mimics Water Cube, one of the most noted architecture design for Olympic Games and a symbol of new China;

- the heavenly palace-like Water Cube and Underwater City, is connected by a Cloud Ladder supported by a giant chariot,a device used in aggressive wars in ancient China;

- finally, there are Great Fire Walls around the whole space resulting the Chinese buildings isolated from its surrounding - a globalized cultural setting.

Learn more about the earlier constructions of "Land of Illusion"

For more information about artists Lily & Honglei, please visit: www.lilyhonglei.com

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