WANRONG ZHU
Visual Artist

In the post-truth era, the boundary between the virtual world and the real world becomes blurred. Using the screenshots in the virtual world and games as the material of fragments, I recombined use layers superimposed many times into the ways of viewing I constructed. I use the visual language of "thermographic camera" to subjectively redefine the temperature of ordinary things and people, extracting their other side that is not perceived. Moreover, I chose several key perspectives, such as the open scenes, diversity and symbiosis in the virtual world, private parts snooping in the first person, uncertainty caused by computer bugs and predicament of the virtual world, etc. These overlapping thermographic visual forms express my cognitive barrier about reality and illusion when distinguishing images in the post-truth era and the virtual world.

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Ingame capture is a kind of cameraless photography in the digital age. It rejects camera installations and can arbitrarily cut into potentially infinite elements, which does not need to be a rational frame around discrete objects. When I take screenshots in the game, I use the power of a computer to simulate photography defects, lighting, expressions, and depth of field. Taking pictures in the game slowly becomes a production process, and you can use tactile and sensory operations to take those shots;     I chose 6 representative angles in the game: 1. Large empty scene, 2. A scene coexisting with robots in the virtual world; 3. Close-up of the faces of NPCs; 4. Taking snap shots of other people’s personal boundaries (which are considered inappropriate in real life) in the first person, 5. Uncertainty caused by bugs and glitches in the game and the dilemma of the virtual world; 6. Corners in the virtual world and things that are often forgotten and overlooked in the real world. I will take a screenshot of 10 different pictures for each scene, taking out some layers of each picture, and then recombine them. Then I used the imaging tones of the thermal imager to color, then I used such an effect to imply the observation of these screenshots or games, thus create a new way of understanding below the surface of the game screenshots. Therefore generates a new look. Through such a new perspective and thermal effect, a new way of observation can be achieved. Especially in the post-epidemic era, "temperature" has become more sensitive than ever, so that you want to use the effect of heat.