++++++ film

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DREAMRAVE (2019)


Dreamrave is a transmedia installation that interrogates the intersection of the digital & physical via collective dreaming by artist Adrian Yu, hosted at Eaton HK in partnership with NY-based creative studio Offline Projects.

 

 

The piece simulates the human sleep cycle, split into 4 unique acts: SELF, ASCENSION, SUBMERSION, and VOID. Following a nonlinear narrative of a mind’s ego-death, each scene shows the perspective of one as they dream up a world rooted in reality, before ascending to hyperreality and plunging into the abyss and losing their sense of self. Shot on 16mm film with an original score by electronic musician Danny L. Harle from P.C. Music, the audio-visual content is processed algorithmically with typography & live footage generated by participants both within the space via a feedback loop camera pointed at the screen, and participants online – so that each viewing is completely unique.

 

The digital web experience, developed in collaboration with interactive artist Ian Glover, connects participants online into the collective consciousness. Speaking to a simulation terminal, participants answer questions posed by the digital entity that will insert user-generated type into the physical installation & live feed – building a permanent imprint of one's consciousness into the worldwide dream simulation.

PACKAGED GOOD (2019)


Packaged Good (2019) is an audio-visual installation featuring a large acrylic container filled with water. The far facing panel of the container is layered with a LED wall that displays a looping video of an androgynous Asian body writhing in liquid space as a light source rotates around it. Using neural networks, the face is then swapped out with a multitude of other Asian faces – both male and female.

 

Soundtracked by an original score by Lord RAJA, the film follows a protagonist in three acts of birth, life, and death – battling opposing forces within an inescapable space.

YELLOW PERIL (2019)


Yellow Peril (2017) is a commentary on national exceptionalism and the palpability of public memory. It appropriates ‘Welcome - Portraits of America’ (2007), the official immigration welcome video made in partnership with Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, and overlays on it the transcript of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, the US’s first ever total immigration ban on an entire nationality for 61 years.

 

The film is projected onto a steel frame filled with water. A manipulated version of the original Portraits of America soundtrack - also the score of Disney’s Epcot fireworks show - is timed to the appearance of each paragraph in the Chinese Exclusion Act.

YELLOW (2018)


A site-specific installation at the corner of Wooster & Canal Street in Chinatown, NY.

As an artist, I am infatuated with specificity – this being site specificity and cultural specificity. I believe it is the duty of both the artist & audience to articulate and perceive where the work lies, in respect to both socio-geographical space & cultural identity.

 

In respect to my own identity, my work allows me to barter with my audience; we enter into a transaction of understanding which centers on both place and being.

 

Upon encountering YELLOW, there are two principles to note:

1. The piece occupies an appropriated space within a historically Eastern neighborhood, within a Western society.

2. As a participant in this work, you are likely shaped by Western semiotic systems – and that has defined your perspective.

 

With this work, I aim to challenge stereotypical notions of Eastern & Western kitsch. By pitting the two sensibilities against one another, they work to assault the senses.

AΩ (2014)