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Moving Image Design

Yi Zhu

Yi Zhu 朱亿 is a visual artist based in Shanghai and London. She prefers to combine interdisciplinary knowledge and technology.


Her creative topic radiates outward with humans as the center, exploring the relationship between human and human, human and Anthropocene, human and nature, and human and the universe.

With a background in contemporary art and information experience design, she mainly creates visual images with narrative, by using moving images, painting, illustration, and 3D software.

Now she's focusing on exploring the realm of virtual reality, expanding XR narrative.


Show Location: Battersea campus: Studio Building, Ground floor

Zhu Yi

THE FACELESS FACE is a VR film that questions the perception of what is ‘normal’ and ‘abnormal’ and explores various systems of control. In this project, ‘psychotic madness’ is the medium for the critical discussion of the code of moral conduct derived from reason and unreason.

Michel Foucault mentioned that the criterion of reason and unreason is the way that the minority of society uses prior knowledge to gain social governance and discourse of power. But following Kant's ideas, knowledge is a subjective product.

Through non-linear narratives, the project points out the control of individual identity by a social group consciousness but also attempts to influence people who are controlled by social values and confined to self-limited identity labels, not to be affected by the bondage of social status, living environment, and religious belief.


The story follows a family conversation with police at various stages of the family's 15-year transition, revealing that everyone in the family has symptoms of various madness. At the end of the story, the policewoman is a patient who has lived in a mental hospital for a long time, and the family is a reflection of her imagination by three doctors who treat her with violence every day.


THE FACELESS FACE - Ultimate trailer

The story follows a family conversation with police at various stages of the family's 15-year transition, revealing that everyone in the family has symptoms of various madness. At the end of the story, the policewoman is a patient who has lived in a mental hospital for a long time, and the family is a reflection of her imagination by three doctors who treat her with violence every day.


Medium:

moving image

Size:

1:19 , 360° ,2022
Storytelling, media item 1
Storytelling, media item 1
Storyboard
Storyboard
Map
MapHow do I use space? Two rooms are used for different scene arrangements. People are starting to think it's a giant anachronism. In the last scene, when the patient's personality in the real world appears, everyone realizes that because the patient lives here every day, there are only these two rooms in her imagination.

The story follows conversations between police and a family, looking at their 15 transition stages and revealing that everyone in the family has symptoms of some kind of madness. At the end, it is policewoman, who is a patient and has lived in a mental hospital for a long time. The family is a reflection of her imagination by three doctors who treat her with violence every day.


Poster
PosterI added the idea that language is a Migdal Bāḇēl(מִגְדַּל בָּבֶל‬‎)of human behavior, and I intentionally created distance between people. Metaphorically, I connect the spirit with the human appearance, creating a sense of dislocation. In the story, I set up many shackles that people will encounter in life, such as social identity, gender, language, geographic space, differences between individual and group concepts, spiritual cognition, etc.
Opening animation0:22
The title of my story comes from the Buddhist term (Sanskrit:animitta), and the original intention of the project is to hope that modern people can be freed from the heavy social class and psychologic
The title of my story comes from the Buddhist term (Sanskrit:animitta), and the original intention of the project is to hope that modern people can be freed from the heavy social class and psychological pressure so that they can enjoy life at ease.
0:44
Mother
Mother
Character Profile, media item 2
Son
Son
Character Profile, media item 4
Father
Father
Character Profile, media item 6
Police (you)
Police (you)
Clothes making
Clothes makingI designed them and found a great collaborator in RCA to make them.
Test the first perspective
Test the first perspectiveBefore shooting I tried various aspects in creating, especially how to make the first perspective watching experience more comfortable
Behind the scenesLet's see what happened before and after the shooting. 15:25
Collaboration
CollaborationCollaboration list
first perspective monologue
first perspective monologue
Mother
Mother
Art Decoration, media item 3
Art Decoration, media item 4
Son
Son
Art Decoration, media item 6
Art Decoration, media item 7
Father
Father
Art Decoration, media item 9
Art Decoration, media item 10
Different materials of props
Different materials of props
Hospital
Hospital
Art Decoration, media item 13
Art Decoration, media item 14
Art Decoration, media item 15

I think the art decoration is especially important in this story.

In narrative design, most of the time, each scene is a one-character to plays the show. Different art designs can set off different identities and environments and are also an important way for the protagonists to connect with each other.

I used different colors to highlight the character of each personality.

This is also the visual point of the real and the surreal.

Chapter I - Mother
Chapter II - Son
Chapter III - Father
Ending - Hospital
Features
Features
Exhibition, media item 2