“Becoming Other” is an immersive solo exhibition that explores the creation and dissolution of socio-ecological boundaries between self and other, and its relationship with its surrounding environment beyond a binary, human-centric perspective. Presented through versatile forms, such as immersive projection, holograms, and digital art prints, the selection of works are all ongoing multi-year worldbuilding creations, instead of a finite piece of artwork with a start and a finish date. At the intersection of myth, technology, and ecology, these worlds, namely the Water worlds (Water Always Goes Where It Wants to Go and Streamborn), Mixanthropy world(Mixanthropy), and Liquid Painting world, are artistic ecosystems that can branch into different forms and mediums of public display, from immersive installation, to interactive performance, to fine art prints. This exhibition showcases all these forms, as well as premiering the lteration 2 of Mixanthropy.

Technology, to Yiou, is a means to reinterpret mythology as myths evolve. In mythology and personal narratives, ecological, mythical, or diaspora characters often liquify identity in response to the environment, with consciousness and agency that are non-binary and anti-othering. The act of becoming, which takes place in Yiou’s digital characters, refers to the retargeting of motion, the morphing between bodies, or both concurrent happenings, and many unsung, unseen, and unrepresentable things that do not fit into modern Western society’s categorical understanding.

On the other hand, becoming other refers to the capacity of the soul or spirit that migrates in masks and movement, between ancient and future, half ritualistic, half performative, half technologized, half shamanic. Maybe there isn’t a distinction between the two but their unison paves the way to visions of the future that connect to the larger-than-human ecology of which we are a small part.

“Art is the opening up of the universe to becoming other.”

— Elizabeth Grosz, philosopher

About Artist

Yiou Wang

Multimedia Artist, Scenographer,

Experience Designer

@yiou_wang_

Yiou Wang is a multimedia artist whose practice centers on storytelling and worldbuilding across physical and virtual realms. In a fresh and innovative use of real-time and animated mediums, Yiou has developed a unique style of “ancient-future myth” characterized by biophilia and transformations from a postanthropocentric perspective, forming new visions of interconnected worlds of life we live in. Coming from art and architecture backgrounds, Yiou creates an artistic ecosystem, comprising boundary-less formats from motion capture performances, video, Mixed Reality experiences, immersive installation, and audiovisual, to digitally fabricated sculpture, to have the audience experience the journey and the world. Yiou is the co-founder and creative director of Mixanthropy Studio, a multidisciplinary art-tech studio creating ancient future myths in artistic expressions using emergent technologies. She holds a Master of Architecture from Harvard University. Her works have been exhibited at institutions and festivals, including several recent ones such as SXSW, SIGGRAPH, MIT Museum, Asian Media Arts Festival, and New Museum of Networked Art.

Location: 15 East, 40th Street, New York, NY 10016, United States

Time: 5:00-8:00 pm EST

Free!

Registration