Di Zhu

My work has included video, printmaking, digital prints, motion graphics, interactive art and virtual reality. Working across 2D and 3D modeling, from abstract to concrete, expanding beyond into 3D motion, alternative modes of storytelling are developed and advanced.

In the past, identity, cultures and conventions have been explored, comparing and utilizing the symbols and values from the East and the West. The past has been traced to find a different and unique place in the world. “Conservative Values" were at the core of the work produced. Having a father’s whose family were all soldiers, and a mother’s family that were all teachers, forged a development under the weight and burden of their principles. Their strict compliance with rules and regulations was rooted in my heart throughout childhood. Early works consider both the ordered and chaotic relationships between the individual and society.

After exploring, it was found that by paying more attention to myself the work became more symbolic and simpler. By standing in a higher spiritual and ideological dimension to create, the research has changed from a personal nature to the predicting future life as human beings. As an artist, from the cognitive level, you have the responsibility to change the world.

The current practice of working focuses on how the virtual world, scientific technological innovations, new production and new lifestyles can micro alienate and reconstruct human beings with a ubiquitous invisible force in a highly globalized era. Based on a sense of crisis, the focus is on new ways of thinking and acting necessitates a new realization of the future.

Around 250 years ago in the industrial revolution, manual work turned into mechanical work, 120 years ago in the Second Industrial Revolution electricity was the catalyst, 60 years ago was the start of Computing Revolution. Then 30 years ago, in the Internet revolution, a large amount of information appeared online, and there was no barrier to human communication. With the advancement of technology and technological innovation will become faster and faster. We are now currently experiencing the advent of the era of artificial intelligence. (AI)

With the advent of AI technology, our way of perceiving the world will be innovated: from looking at works of art, to using the whole body to hear and touch with the five senses. Virtual interaction will become our main entertainment method. This has lead to creative explorations in the Thesis works that are derive from the combination of software tools including TouchDesigner (research on human-computer interaction) and Cinema 4D (research on the use of virtual data to reproduce real life).