‘Southeast Flies the Peacock’ participating Mobile Art exhibition, CAA 2012 in LA

Southeast Flies the Peacock at Chinatown, Los Angles: Augmented Reality Art by Lily & Honglei, John Craig Freeman

Southeast Flies the Peacock

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.

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Mad Drummer Mi Heng at Chinatown, Los Angles: (animated) Augmented Reality Art by Lily & Honglei, John Craig Freeman

Mi Heng: the Mad Drummer (animated AR at Chinatown, LA)

Mi Heng is a reputed scholar in ancient China.  By beating a drum naked in the imperial court and mocking officials in power, he becomes subject of a famous drama, and is praised as the most courageous intellectual throughout Chinese history. This figure repeatedly appears in our work, including animated short film and virtual reality art project. Based on an image sequence extracted from Fourth Cry of the Monkey, the animated virtual sculpture deploying mobile phone augmented reality technology, is performing timelessly at Chinatown of Los Angles as a spiritual symbol of Chinese culture.

More info: http://manifestarblog.wordpress.com/la-re-play/

ManifestAR @ LA Re.Play

LA Re.Play, an Exhibition of Mobile Art in conjunction with Mobile Art: The Aesthetics of Mobile Network Culture in Place-making during the College Arts Association Annual Meeting, Los Angeles, February 22-29, 2012

Co-curators: Hana Iverson, Visiting Scholar, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, Dr. Mimi Sheller, Director, Center for Mobilities Research and Policy, Drexel University and Jeremy Hight, independent artist and curator

Opening reception at CAA Convention Center LA Re.Play Hub Location, February 22, 5:30 – 7:30 pm

Reception: DESMA Grad Art Gallery, Broad Art Center, UCLA,Friday, February 24, 6:00 – 8:00 pm

LA RePlay Postcard

Curatorial Concept

Whereas the public square was once the quintessential place to air grievances, display solidarity, express difference, celebrate similarity, remember, mourn, and reinforce shared values of right and wrong, it is no longer the only anchor for interactions in the public realm. That geography has been relocated to a novel terrain, one that encourages exploration of mobile location based public art. Moreover, public space is now truly open, as artworks can be placed anywhere in the world, without prior permission from government or private authorities – with profound implications for art in the public sphere and the discourse that surrounds it.

About ManifestAR

Participating Artists

• 4Gentlemen (CN,US)
• Mark Skwarek (US)
• John Craig Freeman (US)
• Lily & Honglei (US,CN)
• Tamiko Thiel (US,JP,DE)
• Chris Manzione (US)
• Will Pappenheimer (US)
• Lalie S. Pascual (CH)
• Lili range le chat (FR)
• Geoffrey Alan Rhodes (US)
• Sander Veenhof (NL)
• John Cleater (US)
• Patricia Espinosa (MX)
• Todd Margolis (US)
• Christina Marin (CO)

 

ASPECT Magazine Vol 18: Export China

ASPECT: A Chronicle of New Media Art

V18: Export China

Fall 2011

In recent decades, China has undergone massive social, economic and cultural change, altering its citizens’ view of the world and themselves. China’s artists have rapidly absorbed and reinterpreted the pluralistic styles of Western art, using them to translate the unique realities of life in contemporary China. In turn, many Western artists interested in the play between the individual and society have turned their attention to China as a complex and often culturally loaded subject. This volume contains work by artists from both China and the West, participating in this cross-cultural exchange, responding to it critically from an embedded perspective.

Attempting to approach China as a single subject leads to an encounter with contradictions. Home to what is arguably the oldest continuous culture in the world, it has yet faced unprecedented changes over the past century alone. Its citizens stand between two very different worlds, and each generation’s experience is seemingly unrecognizable to the last. This struggle between the historical and ahistorical may be the cohesive element of the volume. Many of the works featured deal with a piling-on of contradictory elements, a rewriting of history, or a collapsing of past, present and future. Some attempt to present the realities of contemporary life in China through documentary footage, others merely hint at its nuances through poetic gesture. What is offered is not a complete picture of media art made in or responding to contemporary China. Instead it is an attempt to correct the assumption of a single Chinese artistic “voice” or style, to present the multiplicity of experiences in as wide a breadth as possible.

As an artist collective from China, our work reflects social realities and cultural traditions of China. Taking form of digital multimedia presentation, our projects often adapt symbolism and metaphors from Chinese folklore, and reinterpret them in a contemporary context. Integrating fine arts language with new media approaches including digital animation and virtual art, we create visual experiences belong to the 21^st century.  – by Lily & Honglei

Find more information about art project Land of Illusion – Reconstituting History and Culture in Virtual Reality, and commentary by Stephen Persing, click here.

Special Thanks to our project contributors and collaborators:

He Li, 3D modelling, animation and performance in Second Life online virtual world.

Daniel Shanks, performance in Second Life online virtual world.

Scott Grant, performance in Second Life online virtual world.

Philip Zhenming Zhai, conceptual advisor, music composition and performing in Second Life online virtual world.

 

‘Three Wise Monkeys’: new AR project on view

Three Wise Monkeys by 4gentlemen, is selected by Deirdre Scott, Executive Director of Bronx Council on the Arts, for online exhibition at Curate NYC : http://www.curatenyc.org/index.php/section-blog/77-guest-curators/442-deirdre-scott

The work is also on view at: Digital Arts Weeks, at Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, The Art Of Placebo, October 24 – Nov. 2, 2011

Sound Massage with Three Wise Monkeys, by 4Gentlemen, screenshot by Test Subject Pappenheimer, Location: Open Space, Time: 9:12, Date: October 27, 2011.

For work description of Three Wise Monkeys, visit: http://www.curatenyc.org/index.php/digital-art/item/341-three-wise-monkeys-‘hear-no-evil-see-no-evil-and-speak-no-evil’

For exhibtion info, visit: http://manifestarblog.wordpress.com/daw11/i-shall-please-test-subject-portfolio/

 

Solo Screening at CologneOFF 2011: Video Art in a Global Context

Lily & Honglei’s video art is featured as Artist of the Month by CologneOFF: Video Art in a Global Context, October – November 2011:

Lily & Honglei
Videos on view

1. The Forbidden City, 2007-2008, 5:48
2. Home, 2010, 3:00
3. Butterfly Lovers, 2009, 5:00
4. Window: April, 2010, 1:30
5. Window: May, 2010, 1:35
6. The Peony Pavillon, 2011, 5:46

ENTER

Lily Xiying Yang and Honglei Li are new media artists from Beijing, currently based in New York City. Since 2005, they have been working under a collective name Lily & Honglei. Critiquing current global culture and society, their creativity aims to develop new artistic expressions through integrating traditional art forms including painting and Chinese folk art with digital language.

This solo will be presented during the screenings on CologneOFF 2011 Mexico City at two venues:

ExTeresa Arte Actual Mexico City &

Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana Xochimilco Mexico City, Media Fest & Congress “New Paradigms in Art”. During these comprehensive presentations of video art collection by CologneOFF , Lily & Honglei’s six videos are presented.

video screening and lectures at Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana Mexico City (images UAM by courtesy of Diana Guzmán)

curator Wilfried Agricola at UAM - Media fest 2011

UAM - Media fest 2011 exhibition hall

More info: http://vad.nmartproject.net/?page_id=2386

 

‘Mediating Place’ exhibition at Harbor Gallery, MA

Curatorial Statement

The Harbor Gallery proudly presents a landmark exhibition of international contemporary new media artists converging on the theme of “place” in its October exhibit, Mediating Place, curated by Meredith Hoy and Kevin Benisvy. The artists hail from New York City; Berkeley, Califonia; London, UK; China (exact wherabouts unkown); and our very own Boston, MA. They represent institutions as diverse as, University of California Berkeley,  University of London, Emerson College, Mass Art, MIT, and University of Rochester and have work in the collections of The Whitney Museum of American Art, The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, among others. The show seeks to address issues of place in the environment, politics, the home, media and technology with work like Ben Bray’s periodic streaming video updates from his current expedition in the Arctic, John Craig Freeman (with Lily & Honglei, Mark Skwarek, Lalie S. Pascual, Caroline Bernard and 4Gentlemen) augmented reality installations famed for using their politically-minded virtual exhibitions, Ann Torke’s residual accumulation sculptures from the home, and much more.

Mobile phone Augmented Reality artworks on view (screenshots by John Craig Freeman):

Goddess of Democracy and Tank Man, by 4Gentlemen

Great Firewall of China, by 4Gentlemen

The Butterfly Lovers, by Lily & Honglei, John Craig Freeman

The Butterfly Lovers, by Lily & Honglei, John Craig Freeman

The Butterfly Lovers, by Lily & Honglei, John Craig Freeman

Crystal Coffin - virtual China Pavilion, by Lily & Honglei, John Craig Freeman

Crystal Coffin - virtual China Pavilion, by Lily & Honglei, John Craig Freeman

Participating Artists

Ben Bray, Miriam Dym, ecoarttech (Cary Peppermint and Leila Nadir), John Craig Freeman (with Lily & Honglei, Mark Skwarek, Lalie S. Pascual, Caroline Bernard and 4Gentlemen) , Jane Prophet, Anne Torke, and Dyllan Nguyen.

Location

Harbor Gallery, UMass Boston
McCormack building floor 1
100 William T. Morrissey Blvd., Boston MA, 02125.

Gallery Hours & Reception

October 5th – 25th.
Reception on October 5th from 5 – 8 PM.
Open Monday – Thursday, 12 – 7 PM