Students in Nanjing Arts Institute combined VR and 3D printing technology and Archeology into interactive art installations as their graduation project. They launched the art exhibition in the university museum.
China has created jade and lacquer art since ancient times, and porcelain has made China recognized by the world. Jade wares and lacquerwares occupy an important position in our daily life. In ancient times, people devoted “craftsman spirit” to those wares. This includes persistent and meticulous spirits, and contains the beauty and art of utensils.
The typical feature of these utensils lies in the difference in surface decoration and shape. Students hoped to extract some classic patterns for artistic treatment, and use VR equipment and interactive art design to engage the audience to explore and feel the beauty of Chinese heritage.
Below are some HD photos of the 3D printed replicates of the ancient artifacts.
In the VR scene, students made three mini-games based on the heritage replicates.
The first one is porcelain placed in the scene of the shipwreck on the seafloor, tourists can find the porcelain and touch them to see poems and legends about the porcelain. The scene of shipwreck targets to recover the situation when archeologists discovered the heritages.
The second is a room escape game: you can only pass the puzzle game after finding and utilizing the patterns of jade as a clue. It induces people to carefully have a look at the patterns.
The object involved in the third activity is lacquerware: the presented story follows after the making process of lacquerware, and tourists can click on the corresponding tool to read how to use each one.
In the real world part, 3D printed ancient utensils are placed on unnoticed 3D printed grey plates, each of which is equipped with a special flashlight. The whole room is in darkness and only when people illuminate the patterns with flashlights, the corresponding parts of displayed utensils will glow.
It has attracted a large number of audiences to participate. In the general museum display, the audience always passes the window without carefully looking.
