Trench is an art game project made by the new media artist Snow Yunxue Fu and her studio team. It is set in a digitally simulated space resembling an abstracted oceanic environment not unlike the Mariana Trench. While diving deeper within the simulation, the participant approach’s various CGI marine-like objects, which will trigger natural and glitched phenomena that alter the digital experience. The glitching and abstraction of these objects and environment will be based on the visualization of data from environmental research.  The space invites a subliminal experience interrupted by the beauty and terror of natural and man-made phenomena, documenting the current disparity between the majority’s perception of environmental damage caused by human activity, the actual data that exists on such matters, and our desire to preserve, enjoy, and relate to nature. 

Snow Yunxue Fu is a Chinese American new media artist and Assistant Arts Professor at New York University Tisch School of the Arts’ Department of Photography and Imaging in the Institute of Emerging Technology. Using topographical computer-rendered images and installations, her practice merges historical, post-photographic, philosophical, and painterly explorations into the universal aesthetic and definitive nature of the sublime. With a background in painting, photo, and sculpture, she sees her transition into new media as a natural extension of her conceptual research in which she draws parallels between the physical, metaphysical, and multi-dimensionality. She works independently as well as with interns and freelance hires for specific projects. Her work has been collected by the Currents Museum in New York and she remains the youngest artist collected by the National Art Museum of China. Her projects have been shown nationally and internationally, including the Venice Architecture Biennale, Pioneer Works, Shenzhen Independent Animation Biennale, NADA Art Fair, Transfer Gallery, Thoma Art House, etc. She has presented on her artwork and research at international institutions, symposiums, and conferences including International Symposium on Electronic Art (ISEA), SIGGRAPH, and SIGGRAPH Asia, Celebrating Women in New Media Symposium at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, the University of Chicago, and the Fourth Chinese-American Art Faculty Symposium.

Project Assistants: Ashley Liu, Soffiah Decena, Wantong Yao, and Jun Kang