Wanrong Zhu

About

Wanrong Zhu is a multimedia visual artist from China, currently residing in London. Her work integrates art, technology, and fashion, employing a creative approach that combines virtual reality, dynamic imaging, installation, performance, and multimedia with artificial intelligence. She explores the relationship between technology and humanity. Her works evoke strong emotions, offering immersive and unpredictable experiences, transforming intangible sensations into tangible forms inspired by her life and empathetic connections.

In 2021, Zhu was commissioned by Harper’s Bazaar Art to create an art installation, Gedulah, for the inaugural exhibition “Art Healing Room” of the “Bazaar Art Box,” which opened on December 17. In 2023, she utilized XR technology to create the closing piece for Wuhan Fashion Week, a virtual reality metaverse fashion show titled “World Wild.” Additionally, in 2023, she was invited by Harper’s Bazaar Art to collaborate with Macau’s renowned entrepreneur and politician, Pansy Ho, to conduct the “Miao Embroidery Intangible Cultural Heritage Art” project in Guizhou, China, and held the intangible cultural heritage art exhibition “Floral Embellishments, Eternal Classics” in Qiantan, Shanghai. Her work, Symphony of Shadows, was shortlisted for the 2024 SOLO AI ’24 AWARD. Her multimedia immersive installation, The Spirit Never Vanishes, was exhibited at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge on April 30, 2024.

During her postgraduate studies at the Royal College of Art (RCA), Zhu Wanrong created the Dreamscape Series, which combines artificial intelligence technology with multimedia art to explore the complexities of human memory, emotion, and the collective unconscious. Using AI-generated videos, installation art, and virtual reality, she created a surreal sensory space that guides the audience to reflect on and experience the boundaries between dreams and reality. This series begins with personal painful memories and presents a philosophical exploration of themes such as love, loss, and memory reconstruction. Through an artistic interpretation of Jung’s theory of the collective unconscious, it reveals the profound connection between individual and collective psychological experiences. Her work innovatively combines art and technology, challenging traditional art forms and redefining the interaction between audience and artwork, prompting deep reflection on human emotions and social norms.

Chapter 1: White Lily Requiem
This chapter uses AI technology to materialize the painful memories of losing a pet into a sensory experience intertwined with dreams and reality, delving into the nature of memory and the persistence of emotion.

Chapter 2: Symphony of Shadows (Shortlisted for SOLO AI ’24 AWARD Top Ten)
This chapter collects 100 recurring dreams from different individuals, using the shadow archetype from Jung’s concept of the collective unconscious to train AI technology to analyze and reproduce dream fragments, exploring the common psychological structures and emotional experiences in human subconsciousness.

Chapters 3-86
These chapters combine live performance and 3D technology, using 360-degree VR film technology to create a vivid, immersive dream experience that guides the audience to reflect on their perceptions of social norms, emphasizing the role of the subconscious in breaking conventional cognition and questioning humanity’s definitions of “normal” and “the other.”