MIRROR3D (2021)

This work sits in the centre of the project FAC3D, as it offers an interaction between the visitors and one of the avatars created by the artist, Skylar Ang. The audience is invited to sit on a chair of an office desk, on which two computer screens are placed. The first screen shows a chatbot that serves for the audience to type in their question, and once the question is sent, Skylar would articulate her answer with the voice that has been designed for her, echoing in the exhibition room. Skylar's answers are based on the dataset that she was fed with: the books of Haruki Murakami (1Q84), Joseph Campbell (Creative Mythology), Italo Calvino (Invisible Cities), amongst others. Simultaneously, the second screen shows the face of Skylar Ang as a 3D animation. Fed with a dataset related to different emotions, her facial expression constantly changes. 

*For more information on which dataset (in the form of literature) were fed to each avatar, please refer to: https://fac3d.co/_Dataset

Untitled_D & Untitled_N
This video piece completes the major piece in the FAC3D exhibition (MIRROR3D, 2021) as it paints a picture of the world of the three avatars that he created for the project: Skylar Ang, Mikhail Hilmi, and Aahan Prakash. The artist believes that environment forms identity, therefore, prior to creating these digital identities, he started by creating their surroundings first. Chong Yan's architectural background influenced his profound interest in world-building, hence the approach adopted in the making of this work. He treats the digital space as a blank canvas, sketching it slowly, adding one 3D element and another to his satisfaction. The experience of  floating around inside this particular world is made to represent a journey towards becoming a digital self.  As the artist stated, "I believe that everyone has a journey in the digital world."

Isolation_D & Isolation_N (2020)
This 3D video work is an extension of the artist's recent piece and exhibition, KYPHOSIS: Through a Looking Glass (2020), a video game installation developed during the recent pandemic. Isolation, made in response to the idea of ‘unhappiness’, interprets the notion of isolation through a multi- layered context: the worldwide lockdown, as well as the solitary path of an artist. Here, stretched human figures are juxtaposed in the centre of the visual, expressing a certain longing for human touch and interaction, at the same time addressing the perpetual struggle between individual and collective concerns. Once again, the reality is playfully flipped around in Chong Yan's world, which, together with his colourful palette, evoke the idea of a ‘promised happiness’. A work that puts us in a disturbed yet hopeful state at once.