Imemory : exploring the influence of the Chinese media environment on the memories of Chinese post-1980s urban youth through installation art

Abstract

The practice-led research project iMemory is an installation art based on the blueprint of my personal story. It is designed to investigate the influence of the Chinese media environment on the memories of Chinese post-1980s urban youth. In iMemory, I have selected the three most significant memory phenomena of China's post-1980s generation: collective nostalgia; state-controlled historical memory; and China's internet memory policy. I employ three different installation art forms respectively, to express them in series. As a multimedia Gesamtkunstwerk, the project adopts installation, video art, digital compositing, motion sensor technology, virtual reality and augmented reality to present its theme. I also incorporate my own images, performances, and autobiographical materials in the work. By adopting various new media technologies and reconstructing my own memories using digital tools, the artwork not only expresses my personal artistic responses to the aforementioned issues, but also explores the possibilities of representing memory via new media technology and the potentials to enhance interactive experience: in particular, the immersion of audience in an artwork.