Habits of Ancient Deities
Ziquan Wang
The performance led by drones speculatively designs a ritual that augments human perception in an unknown and mysterious environment. This ritual does not necessarily carry religious significance, but distributes sacred practices to secular places. The artist researches both Western and Non-Western religions and builds up a database of magic words, instruments, symbols, actions, etc., in order to make a series of conceptual adaptations of pre-existing rituals. Visual identities of ancient deities and communication methods (i.e. divination, mediumship) are replaced by the aesthetics and operations of racing drones. Drones go on stage and become the main bodies of the ritual. Throughout the performance, the digital signals sent by drones play a leading role in connecting the past to the future, the material to the spiritual, man to non-human beings.
Duration: 2hr.
Ziquan Wang currently lives and works in Shanghai. He graduated from the Central Academy of Fine Arts (China) with a B.A. degree in sculpture in 2017 and from the Royal College of Art with an M.A. degree in 2019. Wang’s practice is rooted in his unique observation and understanding of the Internet and the virtual world, exploring the threshold values between virtuality and reality, and using 3D software to imitate the absurdity in the physical world. By using narrative computer images, he copies and pastes between virtual and real spaces.
FPV Pilots & Performer: tbc / open call
Technical support: OddityRC
Visual design: tbc
Researcher:MIAO Zijin
Funded by Goethe-Institut China