Nineteenth International Conference on the Arts in Society

Abstract

“East Beijing Road” is an asymmetric VR installation that reimagines the stories of a building with a history spanning over 100 years in Shanghai, China. All residents in this building were compelled to move out due to an ongoing gentrification policy. I reconstruct a synthetic space based on 3D photogrammetry models captured in this building. The audience, both inside and outside VR, must use distinct interfaces, assume various roles, and experience different visual presentations to collaboratively achieve individual goals. Old and new, digital and analog, real and fictional, and virtual and physical elements interweave. The project’s ambiguity regarding time and space prompts questions about perceptions of the past and present, the fluidity of archives, and the significance of ruins. The asymmetric mechanism invites audiences to collaboratively unfold the story. This experience of resembling the past becomes a repertoire as articulated by Diane Taylor. The asymmetry design in interactive storytelling blends different times and spaces, allowing the re-enactment of the past through audience actions. The imbalances and incompleteness in media design serve as a metaphor for the fragmented time and space inherent in the archival practice of unveiling the past in the digital epoch.