HyperBody Demo, VR game test recording, 01:20, Chongqing, 2019

The research is undertaken by art and architectural practice and seeks to provide a definition of HyperBody: a hybrid of architecture, anatomy, anthropology and game.

It investigated three specific geographic locations in China that each presents a specific type of excess: The Hyper-religious Body in the Dunhuang Caves, Gansu Province, the Hyper-sexual Body in Beijing, and the Hyper-gastronomical Body in Chongqing. Each offers an expansion of the maximalism research approach, based on visual excess. By conducting fieldwork at these sites, we tried to redefine the spaces around and beyond the human body in order to ultimately lead to the HyperBody – a multi-reality architectural space that mediates between the physical and virtual spheres. We built on the knowledge of the bridges and interstices between architecture and the internet, as well as the creation of digital game spaces, by consulting digital anthropologists and also architectural and design theorists.

The project takes a number of anthropological, architectural, new media (anime, comics and games) and body materials to remix, recreate and rediscover as the subject for, as well as the context of, the research. It will use multiple media starting with drawing and painting before extending to 3D scan, VR filming, painting and game design. This non-hegemonic conglomerate below crosses over from the academic sphere to everyday scenarios and encompasses various subcultures.

The HyperFeast of Chungking Cannibalism Hotpot is a multi-reality spatial experiment both for the research output of the third field study site in Chongqing and a more comprehensive assemblage of art and architectural work-in-progress under the Digital Earth theoretical framework since October 2018. This experiment includes 4 physical levels and 7 virtual levels intersected together that encourage audiences to scan, paint and eat during the event.

It includes Physical and Virtual Levels.

Physical Level 1: Green / Physical Level 2: Orange / Physical Level 3: Pink / Physical Level 4: Red

Virtual Level 1: Rubic’s Cube Mansion / Virtual Level 2: Parallel Cave / Virtual Level 3: 465 Cave / Virtual Level 3.5: Underwater Lama Temple / Virtual Level 4: Anatomy of Embryonic Sexual Power / Virtual Level 5: Ba&Shu Binary Star HyperBody: Hashashin / Virtual Level 6: Ba&Shu Binary Star HyperBody: Shun / Virtual Level 6.5: HyperFeast of Chungking Cannibalism Hotpot

HyperBody Map, Video, 01:10, Chongqing, 2019

Jiadong Qiang and Mingxuan Xie thank Zihan Zhou, Jingzhi Wu, and Ciel Ding for their encouragement, support, and constructive suggestions during the Digital Earth Fellowship 2018-2019 in China.