Cao Fei

• Augmented Reality

  RMB City, 2021

  The Eternal Wave AR: Farewell, 2021

  The Eternal Wave AR: Li Nova, 2020

• The Eternal Wave AR
  2020, Augmented Reality Installation

After premiering Cao Fei’s first virtual realty work, The Eternal Wave at The Serpentine Galleries, Acute Art has collaborated with the artist on an augmented reality version of the kitchen space in which The Eternal Wave begins. Continuing the artist’s exploration of virtual possibilities, this new iteration of the project responded to the current moment by shifting from the VR headset to the smartphone screen, an experimentation with technology that reflects a changed reality to the one in which the exhibition opened.

Viewers are able to use their smartphone to explore the installation by tapping on the objects and furniture to activate the environment in different ways.

• The Eternal Wave,
  2020, Virtual Reality Installation
  Unlimited duration

Beijing-based artist Cao Fei’s first virtual reality work, produced by Acute Art, is entitled The Eternal Wave. This work follows the artist’s previous immersive digital works such as RMB City (2007) created and executed in the online 3D virtual world, Second Life.

An ongoing exploration of virtuality, reality and the perception of self in relation to technology, Cao Fei’s work expands on themes of automation, labour and domesticity.

A deeply immersive experience, visually and literally, the viewer becomes drawn into the deeper realms of the artist’s creative universe. An interactive VR work, the viewer is a participant and player – acting out a role in the artist’s production.

Using the spaces of the Beijing Hongxia Theatre’s kitchen as its backdrop, the experience begins in a physical rendition the kitchen. The space is a stage set that the artist designed for her film, Nova (2019), which was based on the theatre’s original kitchen.

From this starting point, the visitor embarks on a multi-sensory journey through various portals, traversing the boundaries between time and space to explore the computers of the early electronics industry in China and the areas in and around the Hongxia Theatre.

The title of the work is taken from the 1958 Chinese film directed by Wang Ping, which focuses on the story of an underground CPC telegrapher- a key reference within Nova.