Artists Statement

Computer, projector, touch monitor, VR Headset, 6x6x3 m.

We are living in the age of science fictional world and instability now!
Audience type in their name (* Audience will automatically generate an avatar with their name and time, then exists in virtual Hong Kong. Even the audience quits the experience, the avatar will stay there), then put on their virtual reality goggle to experience the re-created slow self-destructing meta-Hong Kong cityscape, together with all of the other accumulated virtual audience who experienced it in a different time.
They are experimenting with the idea of Hong Kong disappearing cityscape, collective memory, virtual identity, multi-verse and non-linear social interaction by interactive VR technology. And they are using the game engine, to create the immersive real-time experience. Gaming is always positioned as a sub-culture or virtual/ fake reality, in contrast to our so-called “reality” that we live in. But now, everything is gamification. Avatar or idealization has become everyone’s daily practice. They social and interact with everything, while at the same time we have isolated ourselves even more in comparing to our parent’s time.
Visitors share a similar experience, while they participate and interact together at different time spot. They hear the recorded sound from the location now, but they see and experience the space and time by a reconstructed reality, and their mind will at the same time connect with their own memory and emotion attachment to the particular space & time of the event. Gaming is no more just a sub-culture or an individual experience. There is no clean cut between gaming and reality. We are living in a more complicated social environment now. In the age of digital humanism, social isolation and interaction is a hybrid concept now. There is no more separation between real or fake, reality or virtual reality, everything is a hyper-reality! Everything is an In-between!   xrt.world/iawht

• XRT is a Hong Kong-based technology-driven creative collective. XRT means Extended Reality Art. They create art installation and experience by using extended reality, immersive technology, artificial intelligence, and machine learning. Their work explores or questions the intersection of art at the computing age, immersive and extended reality, over our local & modern Chinese cultures. I AM/WERE HERE/THERE #1 & #2 exhibits at Microwave International New Media Arts Festival 2018.    xrt.world