Chunyi Shen
About
Chunyi Shen (Dragon) is a cross-media storyteller hailing from both the United Kingdom and China. She is captivated by non-anthropocentric rhizomatic landscapes and engages in cross-species inquiry to address contentious issues. Employing a multidisciplinary approach inspired by multi-species ethnography, she delves into a wide array of elements, including microorganisms (slime molds), stones (silent materials), neurone (emotional material), and AI psychosis (virtual materials). Through the medium of cross-media digital narrative, which encompasses AI (co-create), moving images, sound, interactive design, poetry, VR/AR, and more. She ambitiously weaves a symbiotic network of coexistence between living organisms and inanimate matter, natural substances and virtual materials.
Chunyi (Dragon)'s works emphasise metaphorical poetry and profound psychological insights, intertwining contemplations on the essence of things and philosophical significance. Her projects aim to explore the phenomenology of the body, psychopathology, post-human social ethics, algorithmic biases, marginalised voices, and the boundaries between physical and virtual spaces. By creatively fusing various mediums and concepts, she stimulates viewers to ponder the intricate relationship between humans and non-humans, challenging the conventional boundaries between art and technology.
Recent exhibitions
- 2023 IRCAM Forum Workshop - Centre Pompidou, Paris, France
- 2023 The Outernet Now Building, London, United Kingdom
- 2022 University of Arts London CSSA, London, United Kingdom
- 2022 London Craft Week, London, United Kingdom
- 2022 IRCAM Centre Pompidou, Paris, France
Statement
The Stone-cene is a digital Stonehenge that establishes a symbiosis space. It tackles the universal challenge of nurturing kinship and coexistence among all species by creating symbiotic spaces and blending natural materials with digital media.
Drawing inspiration from the artist's personal micro-identity politics, the stone assumes the role of a connective medium, intertwining collective memories of different species to shape a coherent system. Guided by Taoist principles and string theory, this project offers a novel microscopic perspective, bridging the boundaries between physical and virtual space through the convergence of natural materials and digital media.
The Stone-cene was showcased at The Outernet London Now Building, Europe's largest digital exhibition space, which boasts the world's largest LED screen. Additionally, a virtual reality version of the installation was exhibited at the Pompidou IRCAM in Paris in March 2023.
The Stone-cene
The Stone-cene
By utilising stone as the fundamental medium, it connects various systems: human consciousness space(brain and neurone); bodily space, (encompassing meridians and blood vessels); natural micro-network space (comprising tree roots and microorganisms); and virtual space(AI and extended code).
At the heart of the project lies the creation of symbiotic spaces, inviting audiences to immerse themselves in the resonance of frequencies and contribute to the formation of a new unified system. Serving as a symbol of unity, the artwork interconnects diverse perspectives, fostering collaboration among all entities within the universe.
In the dream, you are
Introduction
This immersive experience presents a narrative set in a post-human context. In a not-so-distant future, human intervention and technology threaten to severely damage the ecosystem, and the virtual world becomes a constructed "sacred place" offering an escape from reality, where humans can immerse themselves, forgetting their true selves and the state of the real world.
Two spaces undertake a part of the narratives respectively. Each has its own metaphor and is connected to an analogical medium - slime mold. Slime mold performs as a symbolic element throughout the spaces.
Slim mold is the fourth category of life form that is nor bacteria, nor plants and nor animals. Corresponding to the rhizomatic de anthropocentrism view brought by the development of the virtual world, which has blurred the boundaries between people and other species, between nature and man-made, and between material and non-material.
Memories of slime molds from anchor times and extends from now to the future, a storyline is created to shuttle between the past, the present and the future, and the growth structure of slim mold metaphors the intangible network form of the virtual world.
From reality to virtuality, from consciousness to unconsciousness, from human beings to microorganisms, from the microstructure to the grand perspective, asking questions about human ontology:
“In the dream, you are?”
Poetic narrative
Fuzzy silky particles
Fainting into a faint spectrum
Flowing infinity
Consciousness stacks and folds
Carved by dynamics into neuron sculpture
Blue vertigo buried the universe
A new reference system
Simulation, sedimentation
Sporangia zygote, cellular division
Break up and dance in the body
Nutrient sediment beyond the original condition
Transcend the solemn geography of human limits
Falling into an infinite universe
Into Dionysus, find freedom
Liberate yourself
Burrowing into oppressive soil
Longing to find green
It's the resonating rhythm
It is the rhizome growth
Tuber connection
Linear structure
Flooding into ontological space
Gradually transparent
Peeling off surface skin
Becoming part of your body
Limbs soak into the same composite plane
To greet the moist, airless space.
Becoming a body without organs
Becoming a pure soul
Imprisoned inside windows
Trees try to stretch out
But angry failure causes them to burn
Wrapped in mottled fragments of emotional memory
Avoiding intergalactic spectra
vacuoles and media
Because the micro truth is no longer visible
Do you know where you are?
Maybe just a figment of my imagination?
From being to becoming
Past melts into future
Returns to present reality
Where
Where to
Where to go?
Locked up in a dream:
Such a strange sensation
Will you wake up if you feel pain？
Jumping out of this cage
A giant 3D fantasy
Reflections floating around
Surrounded by controlling forces
Submerged art of compassion
From nature
Part of nature
Nature eventually takes over bodies
Between breaths grow buds
Wake up!
Wake up!
Are you a fire,
Dare you burn?
Are you ice,
Dare you to freeze?
Can you divide into new cells?
Are you sure you're free?
Dare you to shout out loud that you are free
In a parallel universe- how would you be?
Have you
Have you thought
Have you ever thought:
In the dream, you are?
Sponsors
Website
Website: https://10008617.wixsite.com/my-site-1/works-projects