Production Credits
Creator and Director : Tong Wu
Visual Designer : Tong Wu
Animation Developer : Tong Wu
Music "静夜思":
Vocalist & Composer: Yayi Cai
MIDI Arrangement: Fei Gao (Black Dog)
Showcased at:
solo exhibition "Daily Dividuals", LATITUDE Gallery, New York
Press Coverage:
ARTRON 雅昌艺术头条 (in Chinese)
Exhibition Review of Tong Wu's 'Daily Dividuals' Solo Exhibition
The Paper.cn 澎湃新闻 (in Chinese)
Tong Wu: Diving and drifting, staring and distracting
Southern Art 南方艺术 (in Chinese)
Young Artist Tong Wu: Daily Dividuals, the existence of me and me.
Work Type :
3D Animated Video, single-chanel video sculpture
3D printing sculpture
Design & Development Tool:
3D Interaction and Animation - Unity
3D modeling and rendering - Cinema 4D
3D scanning - itSeez3D, in3D
Post-Production Tool
Conceptual Poster Rendering: Keyshot
visual materials touchup and video editing -
Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop and Premiere Pro
"One Man Band“ is a story about doppelgänger. It creates an infinitely looping space in which one’s physical body and digital doubles coexist and fluidly transform from one to the other, therefore the “one” becomes many yet “many” are actually the “one”.
“One Man Band” Conceptual 3D-printed Sculpture Series - “I am Your Fan”
As a fantasy monologue reflecting on the COVID quarantine life, where the boundary between the physical and virtual worlds has become vague, the video discusses the expanding philosophical brokerage between the physical world, the virtual sphere, and online avatars and the fluid yet dystopian nature of "self."
Each scene in the video story is connected through behaviors related to “gaze” — looking through the window, watching surveillance footage, standing in front of the mirror, as the gaze being the only thing to take a person to go beyond his/her small living space. Therefore, the attitude toward “gaze” is no longer critical, but more with tenderness and obsession.
“One Man Band” Conceptual 3D-printed Sculpture Series - “Duo”
The background music of "One Man Band" is derived from "静夜思 / Thoughts on a Tranquil Night”, a classic 8th century Tang Dynasty poem in Nanyin style. Nanyin music, as one of the oldest ensemble music types in existence, is a style of Chinese classical music from Tong Wu's hometown, the southern Chinese province of Fujian. The singer usually sings in Hokkien, and the five instruments in classic Nanyin (Pipa, Sanxian, Dongxiao, Er xian, and clapper) complement each other to form a delicate and gentle melody. In this tune, the singer segments the entire poem into syllables by disassembling it with the phonology in Hokkien and lengthens the end of each note. Hereon, the language abandons semantics to form visualized and unrecognizable tones.
“One Man Band” Conceptual 3D-printed Sculpture Series - “Trio”
The "one and only" individual converts into numerous avatars here, and the avatars are continuously derived, mutated, and become distinct unities in the imaginary cyber world. As one continues to blend and penetrate into one’s “dividual”, would the passiveness and criticism within the concept of "alienation" gradually weaken once the physical selves start the imagination on their avatars?