Boston

PLEASE NOTE: DIFFERENT VENUE :: May 19, 2009; 7:00 – 9:00 pm [CAVS/MIT, entrance next to the MIT Museum] [Red Line Train to Central Square]

Lily & Honglei (杨熙瑛, 李宏磊), the artist team from Beijing, recently initiated the DSL Cyber Museum of Contemporary Art / DSL 虚拟当代艺术馆_中文网, based on the DSL Collection and their artwork Land of Illusion in Second Life. Cyber MoCA — built with virtual traditional Chinese architecture — houses a series of virtual installations, multimedia presentations and online performances accomplished through cross-continental artist collaborations (since 2007). Cyber MoCA is a cultural meditation engaging history, philosophy, and the Chinese diaspora. It examines the current economic development of China within the context of globalization, while simultaneously exploring the meaning of virtual online communities in terms of global dialogues as they relate to cultural roots and the “fantasy” of China.

Land of Illusion functions as a net-art platform aiming to fulfill the promise that the Internet is the direct continuation of Enlightenment thought, namely promoting cultural openness, decentralization and independent thinking. As Chinese contemporary artists, Lily & Honglei consider these aspects extremely relevant to art-making.

The DSL Collection represents 90 of the leading Chinese avant-garde artists who have a major influence on the development of contemporary art in China today. It was started from a museum approach, which means that we are collecting a wide range of media including painting, sculpture, installation, video, and photography. We want to share the experience of contemporary culture and to make it more accessible and meaningful for a broader public. DSL Collection participates in conferences, seminars, and talks hosted by institutions or at special events. The DSL Collection has participated in seminar at Tsinghua and Shanghai Universities, and been scheduled for a seminar at ARCO Madrid 2009 and a lecture at New York University.

DSL Cyber MoCA will officially open in Second Life on April 30, 2009. All Second Life users (instructions here) can teleport directly to the museum.

Lily & Honglei (杨熙瑛, 李宏磊) currently live and work in Massachusetts. They have been collaborating and actively presenting their creative projects, including net-art, video installation and multimedia, since 2005. Lily Yang is a lecturer in Visual & Media Arts Department at the Emerson College where she teaches Digital Media at graduate-level with emphasis on Web-Based Interactivity. Honglei Li teaches at Massachusetts Cultural Council Art Program. They both received BFA in painting from the Central Academy of Fine Arts in 1997. In 2007, Honglei earned his MFA in painting from UMass Dartmouth, while Lily received her MFA in Digital Media in UMass Dartmouth in 2008.

Lily & Honglei worked as designers and independent artists in Beijing several years before moving to the States. Their paintings and mixed-media works were collected and exhibited internationally. During the years living in America, they have dedicated to experimental projects combining traditional artistic approaches and digital technology in the Internet era. They consider their work are interpreting ancient eastern folklore and philosophy with language in contemporary art, creating significant expressions to achieve cross-cultural communications in a globalized world.

Lily & Honglei’s new media solo exhibitions include, Land of Illusion at Department of Arts, Monash University in Australia (2008), Land of Illusion at American Library Association in New York (2008), Forbidden City at College of Visual and Performing Arts in UMass Dartmouth (2007), Prosperity at Artworks! Gallery in City of New Bedford in Massachusetts (2006).

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