Chongqing - Recently, two exhibitions titled "Boundless Drift" and "Chongqing Hologram Fragments" opened simultaneously at the Chongqing Times Art Museum, breaking the boundaries between art and science and providing visitors with a brand-new art and technology experience.

The exhibition will open free to the public until March 19.

"Boundless Drift," sponsored by the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute (SCFAI), University of Electronic Science and Technology of China (UESTC), and Chongqing Artists Association, showcases the creative achievements of the interdisciplinary practice of "technology and Art." 

This project is a joint teaching practice between SCFAI and UESTC. The two higher institutions have already collaborated for three years in the field of art and technology. 

Zhang Xiang, the exhibition's executive curator, said that following the teaching experience and practical achievements of the previous two editions, this exhibition further explores the potential and boundaries of technology and art.

Upon entering the exhibition hall, various strange and imaginative installations catch the eye - dunes, bottles, pots, and pans - many familiar objects transformed into something unfamiliar by the artists, breaking people's inherent cognitive patterns.

As visitors wander through the exhibition, a loud explosion occasionally erupts, coming from the artwork "Hush! It Will Explode." A giant red balloon constantly inflates within a glass cabinet, and the "source" of its inflation is surprisingly people's attention. The data is converted into the speed at which the balloon inflates by recording changes in the number of offline and online audience members. The more people pay attention to this artwork, the faster the balloon will inflate until it bursts.

In front of the artwork "Dune of Screen Time," the audience gathered to admire it. This piece consists of three parts. The first part records the trajectory of creator Li Bo's mouse movement while reading papers within an hour and the process of a robot making a dune based on that trajectory. The second part is the completed dune, and the third part is the entire device, allowing visitors to create their dune via a touch screen.

 "I used robot technology to follow the mouse trajectory and present a time dune," said Li Bo.

"In the age of touch screens, we tend to focus on the content we touch, but we neglect the action 'touch' itself. I follow the mouse to leave a trace of time, crystallizing time into a visible 'moment,' while blurring the boundaries between daily life and artistic creation and promoting new dimensional relationships between various media."

Compared to "Boundless Drift," "Chongqing Hologram Fragments" is more abstract and surreal. The exhibition, hosted by Sichuan Fine Arts Institute, is one of the presentations of the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute's interdisciplinary series academic activities "Technology Art 'Digital Reverb' Plan."

"The exhibition works are not just from artists, but creators from disciplines and industries such as architects, landscape designers, traffic designers, digital media designers, sculptors, ecological artists, and technology art groups," said curator Zhang Haichao. 

"In the meta-universe space, diversified artistic ideas and media language establish a common standard prototype, forming an effective interdisciplinary, trans-regional, and trans-media dialogue field," he added. 

The audience was enthusiastic on-site, trying to move the mouse or put on VR glasses, experiencing the charm of integrating diverse artists in the Metaverse space. In addition to viewing the exhibition offline at the Chongqing Times Art Museum, the audience can also experience it online through the Meta-Art Station on Baidu's Metaverse platform, "Xi Rang."

(Zhang Yulin, as an intern, also contributed to the report.)