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OutlinesLu Yang: DOKU, The Binary World Screening + Q&A

An innovative motion-capture performance, created by renowned Shanghai-based artist Lu Yang. Dancers  in Sydney and Hong Kong, meet in the same virtual environment creating a high-energy audiovisual experience that draws on Buddhist philosophy, internet culture, video games and the aesthetics of anime.

Two dancers in two cities meet in Lu Yang’s innovative motion-capture experience

DOKU, The Binary World is a premiere screening of the live motion-capture performance by Shanghai-based artist Lu Yangoriginally staged in 2022 as a real-time collaboration between: Hong Kong's Freespace, West Kowloon Cultural District and the Sydney Opera House.

In a remarkable networked performance, motion-captured dancers in the two geographic locations interact in the same virtual environment, creating an innovative artistic collaboration between two major cultural institutions.

The high-energy audiovisual experience draws on Buddhist philosophy, internet culture, video games and the aesthetics of anime. Embodying the avatar forms of Lu Yang's genderless digital reincarnation DOKU - from the Buddhist phrase 'Dokusho Dokushi', or 'We are born alone, we die alone' - the dancers present binary combinations of deities from the six realms of Buddhist reincarnation: Heaven and Hell, Human and Animal, Hungry Ghosts and Asura - jealous gods.

The screening is followed by a Q&A with Lu Yang and producer Mat Spisbah, moderated by The Guardian writer Michael Sun.

Trailer

Meet the artists

Lu Yang

Lu Yang is a Shanghai-based artist who works across video, installation, animation, performance, motion capture and games. Lu Yang graduated with an MA in New Media Art from the China Academy of Art, Hangzhou. The artist’s work explores existential issues about the nature of life through references to Chinese medicine, neuroscience, popular culture and religion. Lu Yang has presented solo exhibitions at ARoS Aarhus Art Museum, 2021; Spiral, Tokyo, 2018; M Woods Museum, Beijing, 2017, and others. In 2015, Lu Yang was selected for the Chinese Pavilion at the 56th Venice Biennale and winner of the BMW Art Journey initiative in 2019.

Credits

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