The Fold: Episode II, 2022
VR experience for Meta Quest and Rift
"The Fold: Episode II" is a virtual reality-based art game involving synthetic agents driven by machine learning. Each level of the experience involves agents of differing complexity. These agents are non-playable characters (NPCs) and are comprised of historical elements found from either Eurocentric or Sinocentric history and philosophy. The game itself is essentially an 'escape the room' experience, some rooms involve puzzles while others are more spatially challenging.
Inspired by Yuk Hui's book, The Question Concerning Technology in China: An Essay in Cosmotechnics, this VR-based 'escape the room' project highlights the similarities and differences of technics
as it relates to Western (episode I) and Eastern (episode II) philosophy including structuralist & surrealist literature, sentient bodies, metaphysics, mathematics, the virtual object,
Buddhism, Zen principles, Qi (氣), and problematizes the affirmation of technics, its outputs and technologies as anthropologically universal within the frame of VR, AI, 3D animation, and video
games.
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VIDEO LINK
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Alex M. Lee is an artist who utilizes 3D animation, video game engines, extended reality platforms, machine learning and the potential of simulation technologies in order to investigate contemporary modes of representation, artifice and technical images - culling from concepts within science, science fiction, physics, philosophy, and modernity.
Born in Seoul, Korea and grew up in the United States of America, he received his BFA (2005) with emphasis in Photography and Digital Imaging and MFA (2009) with emphasis in Art & Technology from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He is Assistant Professor of Animation at Arizona State University's Herberger Institute for Design the Arts with Affiliated Position at Mesa City's Media and Immersive eXperience Center.
Lee has exhibited internationally in North America, Europe and Asia. Selected exhibitions include: Gallery Hakusen, Tokyo, Japan; Mio Photo, Osaka, Japan; Gallery DOS, Seoul, Korea; Daegu Art Factory, Daegu, Korea; Eyebeam: Center for Art & Technology, New York, NY; LEV Festival, Madrid, Spain; Paris/Berlin Recontres Internationales; Elektra International Digital Art Festival, Montreal, Canada; New Images XR Art Fair, Paris, France.
The artist is represented by Vtape.org
If you are interested in exhibiting or viewing this artistic VR experience, please send an email to us.
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