[ISEA2024] Paper: Zhiwan Cheung, Oksana Kryzhanivska & Pan Hui — A Matter of Orientation: Interactive Artwork Recasting Historical Artifacts in Latent Reality

Abstract

Keywords:
Interactive Art, Interactive Storytelling, Non-Linear Narratives, Artificial Intelligence Art, Generative AI, Virtual Reality, Orientalism, Edward Said, Expanded Cinema, Machine Learning

With the rapid proliferation of artificial intelligence (AI) systems in multiple aspects of our lives, AI biases have emerged as a pressing and multifaceted challenge. What can these biases teach us about narratives existing in our cultural memories and storytelling? A Matter of Orientation is an interactive Virtual Reality (VR) installation that speculates on the complexity of this question forged by the Western mode of thinking. Our interactive 3D world, a multimedia assemblage of AI-generated content, tests the limits and affordances of generative AI and room-scale VR that shape the resulting artwork. A Matter of Orientation translates Edward Said’s critique of Orientalism into a new digital reality configured by large language models and gamification of storytelling. Players are immersed in an interactive VR temple that recontextualizes Oriental objects from San Francisco’s Asian Art Museum (AAM) into deepfake videos, image-to-3D models, text-to-image stories and architecture, and generative script writing. In their algorithmic recreation, these historical artifacts amplify the cultural distance already traveled away from their geographic home.

  • Zhiwan Cheung first performed for the camera as a book reviewer for the 1990s TV show Reading Rainbow. Since then, he has continued to probe the intersection of national identity and the personal psyche through his art. Currently, Zhiwan is pursuing a PhD at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (Guangzhou, China).
  • Oksana Kryzhanivska is a practicing artist working between Zhuhai, China, and Milwaukee, USA. The artist teaches Creative Technologies at UW-Milwaukee with a scholarly background in the intersection of technology and art. The artist’s interactive sculptural works have been exhibited in Canada, the USA, Australia, Germany, Italy, and China.
  • Pan Hui is a Chair Professor of Computational Media and Arts and Director of the Center for Metaverse and Computational Creativity at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (Guangzhou, China) and a Chair Professor of Emerging Interdisciplinary Areas at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.