12 August - 2 October 2022
AV and Photography Gallery
Special Brain Island Event, Performance and Artist Talk: Thursday 22 September, 6pm
THE GENERATION OF THE HYPERREAL exhibition includes Xi Li 's animated digital media work Spirit Ether (2021) and two works from her long-term project 'Brain Island' (2019-present): Brain Island: Hyperreal City (2019) and Brain Island: Hyperreal City II (2020). Using digital video, 3D animation and games as their main media, these works present a series of imaginative images of symbols, power, structure, culture and technology, and an intertwined hyperreal world of reality and illusion.
Online Exhibition: Brain Island: Neo-Existentialism, Brain Island: Hyperreal City and Spirit Ether are available to view below.
Play the Game: Brain Island: Hyperreal City II (Adventure Game)
In the Brain Island series of works, Li focuses on the formation of ideology and identity within the framework of existentialism. Based on the concept of heterotopia, as proposed by Michel Foucault, Li hypothesizes a virtual world imagined and recognized in the relationships between individuals and society.
Brain Island: Hyperreal City (2019), Video, 08'27"
Brain Island: Hyperreal City II (2020), Adventure Game
In Spirit Ether, Li examines a social reality that in the context of globalization is dominated by capital logic and depicts a fetish civilization developing within 'Consumerism', 'The Society of the Spectacle' and a 'Pseudo Environment'. In the 'Brain Island' series, Li focuses on ideology and identity formation by positing a world of heterotopia, while imagining and exploring the relationship between the individual and society. Through poetic narratives, the use of multiple identities and a deconstruction of society, Li uses visual language to present an expression of our contemporary spiritual civilization. These works express her experience as a young urbanite with a cross-cultural background and her critical perception of being in the hyperreal generation.
Spirit Ether (2021), Video, 15'54"
Spirit Ether: Isolated (2022), Digital print
Spirit Ether: Mist (2022), Digital print
Biography
Xi Li (李曦) is an interdisciplinary artist from Harbin, China, based in Tāmaki Makaurau, New Zealand. She received a Bachelor of Photo Media from Whitecliffe College of Arts and Design in 2019. In 2021 she received a Master of Fine Arts (with first class honours) at Elam School of Fine Arts at the University of Auckland.
Xi Li's creative practice includes film, digital image, photography, installation, performance, 3D animation, VR, game design, music, and multidisciplinary fields. Through both Eastern and Western philosophical frameworks she explores various experimental concepts, with topics covering identity, ideology, subjectivity, subculture, popular culture, globalization, and more. Li is dedicated to capturing visual imagery in macroscopic thinking and subjective perception, completing the expression and challenge linking theoretical research to artistic practice.
Exhibited works:
'Transcending Bodies', PhotoAccess Huw Davies Gallery, Griffith ACT, Australia, 2022
'Spirit Ether by Xi Li 李曦: A Physics Room offsite project', The Physics Room, Christchurch, New Zealand, 2021
'Cruel Optimism: New Artists Show 2021', Artspace Aotearoa, Auckland, New Zealand, 2021
'Spirit Ether', Window Gallery, Auckland, 2021
'Ratatouille' by Fluid Borders, Audio Foundation, Auckland, 2020
'Free of Charge', Meanwhile, Wellington, 2020
'Terminal', Sôsage Gallery, Auckland, 2019
'Eden Arts Awards 2019', Webb’s, Auckland, 2019
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