Homecore (2022) is a virtual art experience that explores the nostalgic complications between future and past, memory and reality, and self and others. Inspired by Lacan’s Mirror Theory, Homecore sees urban domesticity as an enchanting no-exit space of self-reflection. The story depicts a girl’s repetitive and mundane life routine in a packed and spiral urban home, which is disrupted when she discovers an egg creature that brings about uncanny changes to her environment. Audiences can watch this piece as a 360 animation on a flat screen or experience the protagonist’s mentality in Virtual Reality.
New York City-based multimedia artist Qinru Zhang has been exploring identity and uncanniness using digital mediums including 3D animation and mixed reality. Through observing society’s sexualization of femininity in domesticity, Zhang appropriates, détourns, and normalizes feminine stereotypes to challenge existing identity norms. Recently, Zhang uses interactive technology to enable her audiences to intimately establish a physical relationship with her uncanny art.
