Feng Mengbo Hybridity Investigation

Feng Mengbo Hybridity Investigation

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Brief artist introduction

Feng Mengbo is a Chinese contemporary artist born in 1966 and is currently working out of Beijing China. He specializes in video game artwork.

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Long March: Restart

In his Museum of Modern Art exhibit Long March: Restart, Feng Mengbo combines the digital world of video games and the real life Chinese military march nicknamed the Long March. He is able to portray this march in the video game by having the players be dwarfed by the massive and very long projection of the game in front of the player/viewer. As a gamer, I find it interesting how Feng Mengbo is able to digitally project his artwork, or game in this case, onto the wall and allow users to play it as well. Using hybridity, Feng Mengbo certainly blurs the lines between what is virtual and what is real.

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Q4U

Another one of Feng Mengbo's pieces is Q4U. It is a modification of the a popular first person shooter game called Quake. Q4U is unique in how it is presented, it features 3 screens that 3 people can battle each other on at a time. Unlike it's source game, Q4U is a modified in a way to make Feng Mengbo's face appear as the main character. This makes it seem like Feng Mengbo is both the hero, the person that you play as, and the enemy, the 2 other people you are fighting. This concept of being both the hero and the killer makes it seem like Feng Mengbo is saying that you can be both a hero and a villain, a hero to yourself and a villain to others. The hybridity of this art piece is apparent, it is a game that the artist modified to be projected and displayed to tell an interesting tale.

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Answers to questions

• What have you learned about hybridity?
• I have learned that hybridity is more than mashing two or more traditional art forms together. Hybridity can also extend to the use of any new artistic technologies, like video games and projections. 
• How do contemporary artists use the concept of hybridity in their artwork?
• Contemporary artists use hybridity to mix up their art's medium. Contemporary artists use this change to extend their art's audience along with, in this case, making the art interactive.
• How might you be able to use hybridity in your own art?
• I may be able to use hybridity in my own work almost exactly like how Feng Mengbo does with his, by allowing people to pick up the controller and play through the game/ art.
• Is there something that you found in your investigation that specifically interested or inspired your?
• I found it interesting in how Feng Mengbo used projectors to take the other wise solo experience of playing game and making it into a social experience/ statement.