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RML presents

NEOMYTHOS

A neural-sensatory showcase of new media works by artists from China and Japan who are transforming existing narratives into new mythologies through depictionary video and sound.

Limited run through August 21 only!

THURSDAY - SATURDAY | 7PM, 8:45PM

Gray Area/Grand Theater


Experience Lu Yang’s frenetic expansive motion-capture VR performance, as saturated with manga and anime influences as it is with religion, neurology, and the human body. Wang Meng’s computer generated landscapes conjure traditional Chinese 国画 (guóhuà) paintings, and Shigetoshi Furutani’s collages use found internet imagery to create new mediascapes. Together, these works imagine the possibility of human existence beyond current constructs of gender, environment, and aesthetics.

This genre-bending approach is also reflected in the audio works, crafting in parallel an audio-sensory realm. Chinese techno producer Shao’s ambient work, which ranges from looming to ecstatic, permeates the space with a hypnotic pulsing atmosphere. Yu Miao layers effects pedals over a custom-tuned 古镇(gǔzhēng) to create a new soundscape from the traditional instrument.

Works will be presented in two large-scale cinema environments, and include the premiere of new works for the historic RML CineChamber, a 360° panoramic spatial sound cinema environment, originally conceived in the 90’s in San Francisco’s Recombinant Media Labs.

Co-produced by Gray Area, STRRR TV, Minds over Matter and Derivative.


Featuring works by
LU YANG
WANG MENG
YU MIAO
SHAO
SHIGETOSHI FURUTANI
MASAKO TANAKA
LE FOU

See More

Reserve Your Tickets

Tickets now available through Aug 21

Reserve your ticket by clicking on the show date below.

In accordance with San Francisco city mandates, and to ensure the safety of our community, Gray Area requires all visitors to present proof of vaccination for in-person events. Masks are required for all attendees. Read more about what to expect during your visit.

Sun Mon Tue Wed Thur Fri Sat
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Showtimes: 7PM, 8:45PM
General admission: $25

Group Rates: For groups of 6 or more, contact us at [email protected] for a group discount.

Student/Non-profit Rates:If you are a student or nonprofit worker, or facing financial hardship, we are offering discounts and scholarships. Apply here.

Tickets purchased in advance may be exchanged for a $5 fee; expired tickets cannot be exchanged. No refunds.

Note: flashing lights and high sound volume may affect those who are susceptible to photosensitive epilepsy or other photo and audio sensitivities.


Artists

Lu Yang

Lu Yang (b. Shanghai, China) is a multi-media artist based in Shanghai. Mortality, androgyny, hysteria, existentialism and spiritual neurology feed Lu’s jarring and at times morbid fantasies. Also taking inspiration and resources from Anime, gaming and Sci-fi subcultures, Lu explores his fantasies through mediums including 3D animation, immersive video game installation, holographic, live performances, virtual reality, and computer programming. Lu has collaborated with scientists, psychologists, performers, designers, experimental composers, Pop Music producers, robotics labs, and celebrities throughout his practice. Lu Yang has held exhibitions at UCCA (Beijing), MWoods (Beijing), Cc Foundation (Shanghai), Spiral (Tokyo), Fukuoka Museum of Asian Art (Fukuoka, Japan), Société (Berlin), MOCA Cleveland (Cleveland, Ohio). He has participated in several international biennials and triennials such as 2021 Asia Society Triennial (New York), 2012 & 2018 Shanghai Biennial, 2018 Athens Biennale, 2016 Liverpool Biennial, 2016 International Digital Art Biennale (Montreal), Chinese Pavilion of the 56th Venice Biennale, and 2014 Fukuoka Triennial. In 2019, Lu became the 8th BMW Art Journey winner and started the Yang Digital Incarnation project.

Wang Meng

Wang Meng

Wang Meng is a multimedia visual artist from China and co-founder of Atomic Visual Studio. His work broadly covers video, music, installation art, animation, multimedia stage design, and painting. Wang Meng's audio-visual interactive performances with SHAO have been performed all over the world with pieces like “The Shape of Sound” and “Doppler Shift” being shown at the Worldtronics Festival (DE), Electron Festival (SZ), Cidade Preocupada Festival (PT), Festival Tokyo(JP), and SXSW 2018(US). “Nine Kuai Nine” a.k.a.9.9, conceived up by Wang, is an open ended group with no fixed members and the project merges the world of sound, visuals, and new media installation.

Yu Miao, plays the guzheng in a dark room

Yu Miao

Yu Miao began studying music when she was 6 years old. After graduating from the China Conservatory of Music she has emerged as one of China’s most esteemed young guzheng (Chinese zither) virtuosos. Yu has developed special tuning methods for the guzheng, which overcomes certain limitations in regard to scales and renders more musical possibilities. Yu is not just limited to the Chinese classical canon, as her playing integrates seamlessly with Chinese and western classical music, jazz, electronic music, and rock. Yu is also a composer and sound designer. She has just released the album《Both》together with visual artist Wang Meng, with whom she also performed as a duo at the Aranya Music Festival 2018. She also plays with the Beijing-based band L+R band that fuses electronic dance with the traditional sounds of classical Chinese music, which combines modern electronic music with traditional Kun Opera.

Shao

Shao

Shao is the first Chinese artist to be signed to the legendary Berlin techno imprint Tresor, and is one of China's leading figures in the world of electronic music and audio visual performance. Highly sought-after as a composer and sound designer, he was invited by the Goethe Institute to re-compose the soundtrack for the classic German silent film Metropolis. Shao also has an ongoing collaboration with leading Chinese directors Meng Jinghui and Cheng Ran. At Recombinant Festival 2019, Shao and visualist Wang Meng presented, for the first time, his colossal and discombobulated sound to the city of San Francisco.

Shigetoshi Furutani

Shigetoshi's practice engages with the formation of a language of visuals, exploring methods for visualizing social and personal phenomena, which do not have a conventionally recognized form. His work attempts to develop responses to limitations of language and expand the expression of two dimensional form in an age of social media, and engages with the limits of chaos and order, generativeness and restriction.

Masako Tanaka

Tanaka started designing contents for the 10ch surround video platform since Recombinant Media Labs launched the CineChamber system in SF for the first  time in 2005.
Using the musical sound sources as the focused guiding force, Masa has been generating and placing powerful imagery in the multi-channel formats, striking for spectator engagements to optically experience the original sounds. The consequence of each project is to generate systems which evince a kind of swarming or organized chaos.
The process begins by combining simple and granulated visual assets by certain rules, building up layers of those groups following specific orders and systematizing them. Then repeating that process until the order begins to manifest destabilized chaotic characteristics.

Le Fou

Le Fou (aka LIFEcell) is an electronic artist, content producer and festival producer from San Francisco. His compositions explore meta-futuristic concepts by combining driving rhythms, (in)harmonic experimentation and sonic spatialization. Classically trained in composition and piano at a young age by the eminent pianist and Shanghai Conservatory Professor Li Ruixing, his work has been featured in commercials, label releases, media platforms, documentaries, gallery exhibitions, events and on terrestrial radio stations. Besides performing internationally at festivals such as Electron Geneva and Ultra Korea, he has released with Shao (Tresor) on Caotai records, MHP on SSR (Indieworks) and has a 2019 solo release on the Chinese major label Taihe entitled “The Noble.”

Recombinant Media Labs

The Recombinant Media Labs organization was founded to research the qualities and artistic potential of Spatial Cinema. It does so by means of Experiential Engineering; exploring processes that propagate the aesthetic and technological boundaries of panoramic AV exhibition. RML acts as producer and presenter of hybrid artworks and performance archiving based on spatial media synthesis; intermodal works using image, light, sound and other disseminated media in three-dimensional space. The CineChamber is RML's curated, nomadic platform under the artistic trajectory of founder & Director Naut Humon plus a superhuman crew.

STRRR

STRRR is the future of horizon-expanding television. Where superstars and brilliant newcomers hailing from the world of music, art, design, film, and fashion present their favorite clips and films through the nearly unlimited archives of the Internet. Each meticulously crafted episode presents a self-portrait of the selector, which allows us new insight into their life and work.

Minds Over Matter design

MOM is a San Francisco based ideation and design lab created in 2020 by the founders and creative team behind Obscura Digital.

Derivative

Derivative creates TouchDesigner, a visual development platform with tools to create stunning realtime projects and rich user experiences. Whether it's interactive media systems, architectural projections, live music visuals, or simply rapid-prototyping, TouchDesigner is the platform that can do it all.




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