THE UNSEEN ARCHIVE_ THE UNSEEN ARCHIVE_ THE UNSEEN ARCHIVE_ THE UNSEEN ARCHIVE_ THE UNSEEN ARCHIVE_ THE UNSEEN ARCHIVE_ THE UNSEEN ARCHIVE_ THE UNSEEN ARCHIVE_ THE UNSEEN ARCHIVE_ THE UNSEEN ARCHIVE_ THE UNSEEN ARCHIVE_ THE UNSEEN ARCHIVE_ THE UNSEEN ARCHIVE_ THE UNSEEN ARCHIVE_ THE UNSEEN ARCHIVE_ THE UNSEEN ARCHIVE_ THE UNSEEN ARCHIVE_ THE UNSEEN ARCHIVE_




                              

ATL-AEQUUS & THE FIVE PHASES





Fragment of recollective memories into Atl-Aequus. A journey into the mythological world rooted by a fivefold conceptual scheme. Myth-making by reconfiguring symbols and allegories of the past in order to create its future lineage.

ATL-AEQUUS & THE FIVE PHASES, 2022

Chong Yan Chuah. 蔡崇彦
Malaysian, b. 1992


EDITION:    1AP+1
MEDIUM:    Game Art / Digital Installation / UE5
DIMENSION:    1920x1080p
TIME:    N/A
FRAME:   N/A
SYSTEM:    projector/led screen(150”>), stereo/5.1 speaker
SIGNATURE:   Included. Provided by Artist
CERTIFICATE OF AUTHENTICITY:    Included. Minted as NFT
Since returning to Malaysia, I’ve been learning more about my Chinese-Malaysian heritage through the esoteric yet mundane rituals practiced by my parents and their friends within the local Buddhist community. This rediscovery has led me to contemplate aspects of identity and the various methodologies that work to propagate mythologies, the latter of which I’ve explored in my previous artworks and will reference where necessary.

As a new media artist, my works tend to revolve around worldbuilding and speculative fiction, often employing elements of astronomy, geography and anthropology to enhance the visual and contextual realism of the 3D rendered environment. This was the case in 27 Years of Lazarian Delights, a curated set design of an explorer workspace upon his return from Somnia XYZ-G, a planetary system with three planets, two suns and three moons. The multi-disciplinary project involved the creation of evidence of these adventures - objects, drawings, maps, and other ephemera.

The artwork I’d like to propose shares similarities in terms of worldbuilding, but rather than imagining worlds lightyears away I will redirect my attention back to Earth. However, in this rendition of Earth, I aim to experiment with the temporal dimension by envisioning a society abundant with future mythologies and prospective artefacts without the constraints of location-specific (dependent) culture, ethnicity and spiritual identity that we are familiar with today.

The artwork will take the form of a video game, where audience members can take turns exploring the mythological world, interacting with surreal landscapes and future artifacts/digital installation as if they are time travellers teleporting to a mythical perspective of Earth. Powered by the introduction of Unreal Engine 5 new core technologies in 2020. Lumen, a fully dynamic global illumination solution; and Nanite, a virtualized micropolygon geometry polygon count. to further question the boundaries between reality and the digital world. Further questioning the boundaries between reality and the uncanny digital world.

The focus of the work will be based on myth-making by reconfiguring symbols and allegories of the past in order to create its future lineage. Acknowledging that future utopias cannot exist in a vacuum as my identity and subjective experiences as an artist will shape the overall rendering of this world. Therefore, my family’s roots in Buddhism, particularly the elemental practice of the five phases (Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, and Water), as well as the framework of collective memories, tradition and time may come to light in this exploration.
As with my FAC3D ( https://fac3d.co/ ) exhibition, a collaborative exploration encompassing the idea of the digital self; one that connects machine learning, digital art, and the written word. I’m interested in incorporating an interactive element, which positions the audience as an active contributor, to deeply explore the open-ended simulated narrative’s world. Since I view this artwork as an ongoing exploration of world building, the choices and movements an audience member carries out within the virtual game will be taken into consideration for my next series of artworks.