Devastated by his time in Germany, which he regards as still Nazi, the artist has moved. As he unveils a powerful virtual reality artwork, he talks about needing a monster to fight - and why he´d like to be a barberExperience Ai Weiwei´s virtual reality artwork Omni`When we filmed this,` says Ai Weiwei, `the elephants didn´t know what to do. Once they were used for labour, and now they have lost their job.` The artist is talking about the groundbreaking documentary he has just made about unemployed logging elephants in Myanmar. You watch the film, shot with 360-degree virtual reality technology, through a special headset. Turn your head slowly and your view gradually changes. Turn your head 180 degrees and the picture changes completely.`When they lost their job,` he continues, `each elephant had a few people to take care of it, so those people also lost their job.` Ai (Weiwei is his first name and means unknown or future) relates to the elephants as readily as he does to the subject of the second part of his VR project - this one about the lives of Rohingya refugees in a Bangladeshi camp. Continue reading...
|
