Mixanthropy

Mixanthropy is a holographic art installation of an imaginary shapeshifting journey about the body in transition, visual, and behavioral. It encapsulates a deity's potential to glide between versatile body forms. This work draws the motif of animal-human metamorphosis and identity plurality from a variety of myths and cultural references, from the Greek pantheon to the East Asian bestiary reincarnations, coupling with cutting-edge technologies of motion capture, CGI, and self–trained AI.

Transitioning between animal and human states, Mixanthropy explores the divine hybridity through body transformations based on anatomical isomorphism, with mimetic skin textures echoing different environments with dataset re-generated by AI. The hybrid mixanthrope morphs into other bodies with mocap retargeted on human and nonhuman bodies. This work synchronizes motion, as an externalization of the intrinsic psyche, with 3D body deformation and metamorphosis into humanoids, chimeras, and otherworldly beings. In the process of creation, Meichun and Yiou performed a series of different animist movements while imagining themselves transitioning between their original species, Homo sapiens, and another species. Using motion capture technology of MIT Immersion Lab, Meichun and Yiou choreographed and personally provided movements to the shapeshifting beings.

https://mixanthropy.com/

Design and Art: Meichun Cai, Yiou Wang
Original Music: Shirley He
Photography: Heather Westmoreland