LI ZHU

ABOUT

LI ZHU

Working across different disciplines such as AI, VR, performance, installation, Li Zhu’s art is trying to figure out how technology shapes us, and to express human sensation in a time where new technologies are about to take over in our society.

Artwork details:

Title: ComradeEnemy

Fileformat: MP4 – VR

Year: 2020

Artwork description:

The exciting thing about this work, which at first glance looks like a 3D movie, is that the artist only created a physical environment. All the “story-liked” things that the player sees after entering the “room,” and even the movement trajectories of all objects, including most of the player’s path, are formed by the physical attributes of the game object itself and the interacted action based on these physical attributes.

Therefore, unlike the director’s control of all the storylines in traditional movies, in this “VR game” that looks like a 3D movie at first glance, most scenes are not directly designed and controlled by the author. Instead, the artist just established this environment and placed things with different physical characteristics inside. Therefore, this “game environment” may be very similar to our real universe. “God” created a set of purely physical or mathematical game rules for a universe. All objects or creatures can “freely” play and interact with each other based on these rules. Then after a long time, it has been developing some stories we call “history.”

Also, for this reason, it is difficult for this “movie” based on the physical environment to develop in a short time the “dramatic montage” that audiences are used to seeing in any movie.

Finally, perhaps the most meaningful part of this work – which unfortunately we cannot see with this simple video presentation of the VR piece: it never repeats itself. Every time you enter this VR work, you will see a different scene. This is a bit like what this old adage said: “we will never step into the same river twice.”

Further, this may be a bit like a model of parallel universe. And, -of course, it is just a straightforward model.

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