Long-term global partner of Art Basel, BMW, and the virtual and augmented reality company Acute Art are coming together this week to present the high octane and future forming artwork of digital artist Lu Yang.
Yang's latest creation, "Gigant DOKU" will be presented at Art Basel's latest edition of their online viewing rooms, "OVR: Miami Beach" from December 2 to 6, and the interactive Augmented reality piece can be experimented with anywhere you like and downloaded from the Acute Art app.
On Acute's partnership with BMW Jacob De Geer, CEO of Acute Art commented, "The world stopped moving and people stopped traveling, but human creativity never stands still. Acute Art’s new partnership with BMW is proof of a shared vision and comes at the right time. It’s always been our ambition to reach people outside of the artworld’s traditional institutions. Our company was founded on the vision of bringing art to places where it could not be before. During the pandemic, our aspiration has gained new urgency. Art needs new ways to reach its audiences."
Lu Yang represents the new wave of digital artists reflecting the chaotic virtual and real worlds we live in madly majestic and deeply hypnotic works of art that speak deeply to our generation. Yang’s fierce and in your face style is inspired by his love of Chinese cultural and spiritual history, manga comics, contemporary youth, and gaming subcultures and puts a virtual mirror up to the craziness of our reality. Yang has a deep interest in traditional dance and performance and fuses these with his knowledge of robotics, taking on futuristic notions about an emerging post-gender and human society in which the lines between the objective and metaphysical world are blurred
"Gigant DOKU" takes Yang's digital avatar "DOKU" and pits him against the physical world as a giant dancing superhero of sorts. The piece is developed by an advanced game engine and uses motion capture image data gathered during the artist’s BMW Art Journey through Tokyo and Bali.
Yang’s BMW Art Journey is where the inspiration for the movement of "DOKU" was taken. Through the journey, Yang explored how the human body can overcome limitations and its deployment in historical and present-day cultures. Researching how humans negotiate their evolving relationship with machines, the journey took Yang to Bali, Indonesia where the artist used motion-capture devices to record dancer’s gestures analyzing the subtlest body movements.
On Yang's art journey Hedwig Solis Weinstein, Head of BMW Brand Cooperations, Arts and Design said, "Creative freedom, innovation and seeing the world through the unique eyes of a new generation: The BMW Art Journey can take an artist almost anywhere in the world - to research, envision and create new work. Lu Yang’s journey pushed physical boundaries and thanks to the new partnership with Acute Art extended into a digital dimension connecting peers across the globe and sharing a participatory spirit."
As well as showcasing Yang’s "Gigant DOKU", OVR: Miami Beach will play host to selected works from the artist, charting the artistic evolution to Yang's current body of work. The work plunges the viewer into a fictional universe, confronting philosophical concerns about what it means to be human investigated in Yang’s hypnotic, disruptive, and exciting visual language.
You can download and experience the interactive artwork of Lu Yang’s "Gigant DOKU" on the Acute Art app here and make sure to head over to Art Basel’s site to check out Lu Yang’s digital exhibition here.
