Awakening (aka Goodbye, Cinderella.)

I started to create my own immersive art after some theatre production and filmmaking experiences. This is not only because digital is more environmentally and visually advantageous, but also comes from the fact that I value the fact that it acts like a microscope to magnify things we would normally overlook.

For this project, I used a mixed reality approach to bring to life the pain of losing a relative. It is a process that almost everyone goes through, but often because we focus on the deceased, we neglect the families who deserve more attention. In particular, as an East Asian artist, there is a taboo in my home country to talk about death while all the relatives are alive. So few people know in advance how to face the death of themselves and their significant family members in peace, and when they have to face such a situation, it is often accompanied by great grief and helplessness. And it is worth mentioning that death and facing it is a compulsory lesson in our lives. So I want to break the taboo and prepare my audience to face death and to be empathetic and comforted by the performance I created.

As a mixed-reality performance, this production differs from most immersive productions in that the VR headsets are used by the actor rather than the audience. As a mixed-reality performance, this production differs from most immersive productions in that the VR headset is used by the actors rather than the audience. The VR part of the performance appears as a fantasy image of the hero surreally on the wall of the ward. This gives the audience a better insight into his inner world and enriches the story. At the same time, the position of objects in the ward corresponded to something in his fantasy, but the real behaviour of the main character in the ward and the interactive behaviour in VR produced different results, which created a strong contrast and showed the difficulties that the family of the deceased often had to go through during this painful reawakening process, which was unknown to others. The creative process of using the location of objects to create a connection between the real and the virtual, and the use of different interaction outcomes to create a contrast between the real and the virtual. In my creative philosophy, this is exactly what virtual and realistic mean.

As I said, I have always sought to balance my focus on the virtual and real parts of my work, rather than focusing on making digital work that feels exciting but doesn't have much social relevance. I have always built a connection between the virtual and the real for my audience through real objects in mixed-reality forms, rather than brutally making them put on VR headsets.

Additionally, my experience in costume design has enhanced my handcrafting skills, allowing me to create more expressive and impactful work both in the virtual and real realms.