X虚拟孵化器
xmuseum.org/xvirtual
2022.08.16全面上线
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艺术家：
金·劳顿
加布里埃尔·马桑
孙羽茜
王长存
策展人：吴冬雪，强家栋
X虚拟是一个为艺术爱好者和创意实践者提供3D聚会的线上平台，由艺术家创作的多个虚拟世界的集合。作为X虚拟的首个项目，X虚拟孵化器提供第一人称视角来探索新的数字艺术委任。该项目是项目团队对虚拟环境和线上展览进行的为期两年研究的结果。项目汇集了四位工作于中国、英国和巴西的艺术家，在当下正处于萌生阶段的虚拟艺术网络语境中，他们的实践引发着新的方法论原型。
在全球范围内，对于智慧空间网来临的畅想促使新的数字基础设施得以开始部署。于此同时，艺术从业者则受到元宇宙最古老的先驱--大型多人在线游戏（MMOs）的启发。随着游戏引擎成为游戏行业之外的常用工具，从数字雕塑和视听空间到表演和独立游戏，更广泛的艺术家群体开始使用游戏引擎创作各种作品。虚拟创作环境催生出了新的艺术生产协议，这些新的模式正在重新配置着现有的文化和技术的交涉界面，并且在早前由"物理-虚拟对立"而建构出的扩展领域中激起了新的分支。从建造一座矗立在沙漠中的怪诞考古庙宇，到一系列内部关联的、由暴力和自由为线索贯穿而成的虚拟世界，展览中的艺术家们将虚构的文明、移民历史和洲际地缘政治编织成离经荒诞的网络现实，在艺术和技术之间铺设幻想之地。
X虚拟孵化器项目通过委任艺术家在X虚拟的在线社区直接进行创作，深入探讨虚拟环境中的空间性及其相关的多重内涵。从散落在一个冥想式的极简空间周围的算法音乐片段，到未来变异赛博格的虚构管理机构和AI聊天机器人，展览中的艺术家们设想了新形式的空间视听体验、数字物品残影，以及由赛博格的加速发展而带来的，具有意识的突变体等潜在伦理问题。X虚拟孵化器以跨学科的尝试为基础，通过文本、声音、视频、场景、AI聊天机器人和独立游戏，颠覆并重新认识数字艺术、虚拟空间和电子游戏之间错综复杂的网络。
该项目所对应的实体展览将于2022年9月起在北京X美术馆呈现，展览将带来两个沉浸式装置。通过线下参与，艺术家和观众将激活并不事先存在于线上虚拟世界中的更多含义。该项目与Silicon Valet战略合作。
X Virtual Incubator
xmuseum.org/xvirtual
Available Everywhere 2022.08.16
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Artists:
Kim Laughton
Gabriel Massan
CheeseTalk
ayrtbh
Co-curated by Poppy Dongxue Wu and Pete Jiadong Qiang
X Virtual Incubator is the inaugural project of X Virtual - an assemblage of virtual worlds that provide 3D meet-ups for art enthusiasts and creative intellectuals. The project provides first-person exploration of new digital art commissions and is a result of the project team’s 2-year research on virtual environments and online exhibitions. X Virtual Incubator brings together four artists working across China, the UK, and Brazil, whose practices spark new methodological archetypes for the impending network of virtual art.
The speculative future of The Spatial Web prompts the deployment of new digital infrastructure on a global scale whilst art practitioners enlightening by the oldest pioneer of the metaverse - massively multiplayer online games (MMOs). With the game engine becoming a prominent tool beyond the gaming industry, a broader group of artists started to create various works ranging from digital sculpture and audio-visual space to performance and indie games. This new protocol of art production in the virtual context has reconfigured the existing cultural and technological interface, spiking new branches in the expanded field previously framed by physical-virtual division. From the construction of an eerie archaeological temple standing in an untrodden desert to a series of intra-related virtual worlds conceptually threaded by violence and freedom, the artists in the show weave fictional civilisation, immigration histories and cross-continent geopolitics into uncanny cyberrealities, extending new territories between art and technology.
The project delves into spatiality and its multiple connotations in the virtual environment by commissioning artists to work primarily on X Virtual’s online community. From algorithmic music clips scattered around a meditative and boundless virtual space to AI chatbots in a fictional agency for hybrid cyborgs, the artists in the show envision new forms of audio-visual experience, after-image of the digital object, as well as potential sentient mutants brought by the accelerated development of cyborgs. X Virtual Incubator grounds interdisciplinary attempts that destabilise and re-envision the intricate web between digital art, virtual space and video game through text, sound, video, scene, AI chatbot and indie games.
A physical showcase of the project, including two immersive installations will be on view from September 2022 at X Museum in Beijing. With offline participation, new meanings that do not pre-exist in the online virtual worlds will be generated by artists and audiences. The project is in strategic partnership with Silicon Valet.
X虚拟孵化器《恐怖舞会》, 2022，（艺术家：加布里埃尔·马桑）
加布里埃尔·马桑
《恐怖舞会》, 2022
加布里埃尔·马桑（生于1996年）是一位巴西数字艺术家，目前居住在柏林。马桑通过广泛的新技术来创造虚拟世界，包括3D雕塑、场景和声音。他的作品以极繁化的、抽象的视觉表现为特征，是对恐怖主义和战争等不同社会问题的虚拟建构。
《恐怖舞会》是一个新的系列作品，包含四个内在关联的虚拟世界，本作品由X虚拟孵化器委任创作。该作品源于艺术家的战争记忆，通过对 "巴西放克（Baile Funk）"的抽象模拟，马桑将暴力和自由作为概念线索，使之贯穿整个作品。由于这个属于非裔离散群体的音乐起源于里约热内卢贫民区的工人阶级，因此常常被当局罪恶化。《恐怖舞会》将被压制的声音与诸如烟雾、火和居住地等视觉隐喻结合起来，渲染出一个介于安全与不安全、动荡与宁静之间的虚构环境。
Gabriel Massan
Ball of Terror, 2022
Gabriel Massan (b. 1996) is a Brazilian digital artist currently based in Berlin. Massan works across a wide variety of new technologies to create virtual worlds that encompass 3D sculpture, scene, and sound. Characterised by maximalist, abstract visual representations, Massan’s works are virtual constructions of diverse societal issues such as terrorism and war.
Ball of Terror is a new series of work containing four intra-related virtual worlds commissioned by X Virtual Incubator. Conceptually threaded by violence and freedom, the work stems from the artist’s war memories embodied by the abstract simulation of ‘Baile Funk’. This Afro-diasporic music is heavily criminalised due to its working class root in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro. Combining the suppressed voice with visual tropes such as smoke, fire, and habitation, Ball of Terror renders a fictional environment between security and insecurity, turbulence and tranquility.
X虚拟孵化器《板块仪式》, 2022，（艺术家：金·劳顿）
金·劳顿
《板块仪式》，2022
金·劳顿（生于1984年）是一位英国数字艺术家，目前居住在上海。劳顿探索后互联网美学的边缘，用计算机生成的、超现实的3D图形联接人类的感知和现实主义。劳顿的作品模糊了技术演示、音乐视频、实验电影和病毒式内容之间的界限--他常常利用先进的成像技术来勾勒出具有虚无主义的反面乌托邦。
《板块仪式》是一个新的作品，包括两个相互连接的虚拟世界以及一个在X美术馆的实体装置。作品的主体是一座矗立在人迹罕至的沙漠中的神殿，这个神殿来自于未知的过去。艺术家通过一个可探索的开放式神殿和展厅环境中整齐排列的用于仪式的物品，将虚构的文明和饱和的景观编织成一个极具真实性的考古基地。艺术家试图将《板块仪式》构建为一个"真实历史遗址的复制品"，只能通过每个参与者的想象力来解读。该作品由X虚拟孵化器委任创作。
Kim Laughton
Slab Ceremony, 2022
Kim Laughton (b. 1984) is a British digital artist currently based in Shanghai. Laughton explores the fringes of post-internet aesthetics, articulating human perception and realism with hyper-real computer-generated 3D graphics. Laughton's work blurs the boundaries between tech demo, music video, experimental film, and viral content - often exploiting cutting-edge imaging techniques to conjure feelings of nihilistic dystopia.
Slab Ceremony is a new body of work comprising two interconnected virtual worlds and a physical installation at X Museum. Central to the narration is a temple of unknown past standing in an untrodden desert. Through an explorable open temple and ceremonial objects neatly arranged in a gallery environment, the artist weaves fictional civilisation and saturated landscape into an archaeological verisimilitude. Slab Ceremony is structured with an attempt to represent a ‘reproduction of a real historic site’ that can only be puzzled by each participant’s imagination. The work is commissioned by X Virtual Incubator.
X虚拟孵化器《混种博格机构》, 2022，（艺术家：孙羽茜）
孙羽茜
《混种博格机构》，2022
孙羽茜（生于1997年）是一位中国艺术家和研究员，目前居住在伦敦。她的艺术实践时常在聊天机器人和叙事之间发生，通过虚拟环境中的人工智能技术，带来独具幻想气质的网络现实。受电子游戏中虚拟人物之间对话的启发，她的作品中的聊天机器人往往被赋予了人格化的特征，引导叙述和好奇心，增强人与人工智能的互动中的亲密感。
《混种博格机构》幻想了一个在2600年的虚拟世界，这里存在着生物技术所带来的新的生命形式。该作品由X虚拟孵化器委任创作。"混种博格机构"是一个存在于未来的管理局，管理具有生命形式的突变体，"混种博格（hyborg）"本身则是"混种（hybrid）"和"赛博格（cyborg）"两个词语在字面意义上的融合。三个形态与鹿相似的混种博格游荡在一个神话般的森林里，周围漂浮着一些虚拟物品。艺术家试图通过三只聊天电子鹿，来触发参与者和混种赛博格之间的交流，进而对技术加速发展所带来的潜在情境提出质疑。
CheeseTalk
Hyborg Agency, 2022
CheeseTalk (b. 1997) is a Chinese artist and researcher currently based in London. Situating between chatbot and storytelling, her artistic practice is primarily centred around AI technology in the virtual environment that brings about fantastical cyber realities. Inspired by conversations between virtual characters in video games, chatbots in her work are often imbued with personifications that lead the narration and steer curiosity, fuelling intimacy in human-AI interaction.
Hyborg Agency is a virtual world that fantasises new biotech life form in 2600. The work is commissioned by X Virtual Incubator. ‘Hyborg Agency’ is a future bureau for intelligent mutants that manifest in life forms, itself a blend of ‘hybrid’ and ‘cyborg’ in the literal sense. In a mythical forest, three deer-like hyborgs are wandering, with few digital objects floating around. Through three deer chatbots, the artist attempts to facilitate communication between participants and hyborgs, as well as to contest potential scenarios brought by the accelerated development of technology.
X虚拟孵化器《精神与时间的房间》, 2022，（艺术家：王长存）
王长存
《精神与时间的房间》，2022
王长存（ayrtbh，生于1981年）精通数字，他的艺术实践基于互联网和算法等语言。他目前居住于杭州和上海。近二十年来，王长存的视觉和音乐艺术作品经常援引具有虚拟性质的时间和空间结构，直接反映了人们在既定空间的运动困境。
《精神与时间的房间》是X虚拟孵化器委任制作的一个新的视听虚拟空间。二十八个电子和算法声音片段沿着五个环形标记散布在一个由白色地面和蓝色天空组成的冥想性虚拟空间中。在空间内移动时，可以感知到声音强度的变化，一个声音的增强和另一个声音的减弱。在极简的视觉表象下，参与者的听觉系统成为一个独特的虚拟声音景观的基本航标，而这个声音景观则是由他们自己混合而成的。
ayrtbh
Hyperbolic Time Chamber, 2022
Wang Changcun (ayrtbh, b. 1981) is well versed in digital, internet-based and algorithmic languages. He is currently based in Hangzhou and Shanghai. For nearly two decades, his visual and musical artworks frequently reference temporal and spatial structures that are virtual in nature and directly reflect the conundrum of suspended motion and mobility in an intersubjective environment.
Hyperbolic Time Chamber is a new audio-visual virtual space commissioned by X Virtual Incubator. Twenty-eight electronic and algorithmic sound clips are scattered along five rings in a meditative virtual space composed of white ground and blue sky. Changes in sound intensity, enhancement in one sound and reduction in the other can be perceived when moving around the space. With minimal visual representations, participants’ auditory systems become the essential navigator for a unique virtual soundscape that is mixed and synthesised by themselves.
