Guanpai Feng

Guanpai Feng grew up in Shenzhen, China. He's a character designer and multimedia artist. Before he finished his degree in RCA, he graduated from the Open Media Lab of the School of Intermedia Art in the China Academy of Art.

During his college time, he took part in several exhibitions with his works such as the 10th Hangzhou Cultural and Creative Industry Exposition(2016), Mind Cosmos Sci-Fi VR Exhibition at Guangzhou Fengmian Art Space(2017), the Annual celebration exhibition of China Academy of Art in National Art Museum of China(2018), Visual Poetry Exhibition of School of Intermedia Art, CAA and School of Art, Kassel University(2018)

Guanpai Feng integrated different art forms through a series of practices during his studies at the Royal College of Art. In his graduation work, he set an interactive viewing rule influenced by relational art, experimental theatre and Asian puppet theatre for the audience. Meanwhile, he explored how to incorporate the behaviour of watching into part of the work, and tried to depict virtual distance through time and waiting.

Ephemera Cache — Ephemera Cache is a short film that addresses aesthetic and philosophical concepts of loss and mourning through remembering, waiting and watching. A digital monument commemorating creatures and things lost in life, the film draws on the shared experience of people looking to reconnect through cyberspace.

Ephemera Cache is an experimental animation for Guanpai's exploration during his studying and also the first step in Guanpai's long-term project. It used multiple mediums like 3D animations and AI-generated images.

The title of this work means a temporary storage area for lives that have short lifespans. The work mainly shows the process of a nameless character searching for a dragonfly, a symbol of memory.

As the Covid19 outbreak shows, some people are cheering for the newborn, while some people are screaming and crying. The invisible crack between life and life has widened because of Isolation and lockdown. Thus, Guanpai wants to bridge these cracks using virtual forms. By creating an experience of waiting and watching, Guanpai aims to evoke people’s memory of lives that are gradually fading or being ignored. By describing virtual distance, the work tells the audience there is such a person or creature in a certain corner of the world.

Guanpai emphasizes the state of watching in the works. In his opinion, the audience is also an important role in his animation. He combines the literary technique MISE EN ABYME and the meaning of well in Chinese literature in order to strengthen the behaviour that the audience is watching. The opening scene guides the audience to look into the well and walk through it, which invites the audience to recall the past.