Tong Gallery+Projects is honored to paticipate 2023 NAFI, during which the artists Hou Shuai's solo project will be presented. Look forward to see you on September 27th, 2023! 

Stanley Winbaum envisioned a pair of glasses in his 1935 novel "Pygmalion's Spectacles" that could transport the wearer into a virtual universe. These glasses had the ability to simulate not only visual perception but also touch, smell, and taste. Furthermore, they allowed interaction with the world within the lenses and influenced the historical course of that virtual world. By utilizing this allegory, the author recreated familiar landscapes from the real world through artificial intelligence. This process gave birth to an unstable new world, enhanced by the traditional silent film format that intensified its absurdity and indifference. Just as described in Plato's Allegory of the Cave, we find ourselves suspended between two worlds, and our connection to the real world has been severed.

Based on an old office setting depicted in the famous painting "Office at Night," a virtual and modern office environment that caters to the needs of urban white-collar workers has been reconstructed and recreated using digital techniques. Here, the dimensions of virtuality and reality begin to merge, but the seemingly perfect world evokes feelings of indifference and absurdity. The precise calculations and overlay of dreams stitch together the spaces of virtuality and reality.

In this tiny space of the bathroom, reality and illusion intertwine, presenting a complex and intricate expansion of the dimension . He (she) is trapped in this bathroom, guided by artificial intelligence analysis, and is stucked in an illusory imprisonment, plagued by a mist-like confusion, giving rise to a multitude of emotions shared by the viewer and the protagonist as they seek a way to escape.

People are trapped in meaningless duties, toiling away in cubicles day after day. Yet, as artificial intelligence reshapes the new world, the creator has not attempted to break free from this prison. The exhaustion, emptiness, and hopelessness brought on by work will only deepen their plight, forcing observers to reexamine the labor behaviors that exist in both the real and virtual worlds.

The dead whale lying still on the embankment is not from reality, but rather a composition of thousands of details of human injured skin, making it a massive collection of human suffering.

A serene blue pool, lush green plants, and an unrealistically beautiful world that captivates. However, as the viewer delves deeper, they discover sharp iron wire thorns scattered along the poolside. Beneath the seemingly joyful background of the virtual world, there are hidden troubles and constraints.