Andrew Li - Portfolio

An aspiring 3D artist with a passion for art, culture and design. As an Asian Australian who has experienced living in between two cultures, he wishes to find his own identity through varies of creative mediums.

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Hikikomori

Hikikomori is a fictional, linear narrative based in Taipei, Taiwan. It tells the story of a middle-aged, androgynous character called Bo, who has been living a reclusive life for the past seven years. They were driven into this lifestyle because of external judgement and misunderstanding of their sexual minority and constantly being bullied at work. Bo felt detached from the people around them and eventually lost faith in society. As Bo’s lonely days dragged on like years, a glamorous drag queen emerges and brightens their solitude. 

With the magic of makeovers, the intelligence of sass and shade, and the blessing of self-love. The drag queen carries Bo on an emotional journey to help regain the confidence that was buried deep inside Bo’s heart and rekindles their ability to reconnect with the society around them. As their journey unravels, Bo comes to a shocking realization that the drag queen’s true identity is actually a mirror of Bo’s inner true self. This project invites the player on a soul-seeking adventure through a minority point of view with a dose of symbolic message “Only you can truly help yourself.”

Storyboard:

Character Design - Arecya Nuts

Environment Design

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Electric Flower

The concept of this diorama is to create a surreal ghost parade inspired by a traditional Taiwanese funeral service and Taiwanese folk-religious beliefs of a celebration leading on to the afterlife. The main focus of this diorama is the Taiwanese Electric Flower Car as it usually leads the funeral parade, followed by a traditional funeral orchestra guiding the spirits to cross over the Naihe Bridge to the afterlife. The cel-shading art style is inspired by the movie Paprika (2006) and Spirited Away (2001).

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First Site Gallery - X, Y, Z

Due to the global pandemic, the physical space of the student led gallery - First Site Gallery has unfortunately closed. However, we utilised this opportunity to produce this working prototype of a digital gallery that aims to provide a virtual exhibition platform for all students to showcase their work.

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Multicultural Halloween Characters

Yowie (Aboriginal Australia)

The yowie is one of Australia’s most famous folklore creatures with its roots in Aboriginal-Australian history where it is named Ghindaring, doolaga, thoolaga, yaroma, wawee, to say a few. They are known as quinkin and joogabinna in parts of Queensland, Australia. The origin of the name “yowie” is unclear, but the term was in used in 1875 among the Kámilarói people and documented in Rev.William Ridley’s “Kámilarói and Other Australian Languages”: “Yō-wī” is a spirit that roams over the earth at night. However, some suggested that it came from Aboriginal legends of the “Yahoo”. Some describe the yowie as timid and shy. Others report as fierce. The Indigenous people of Australia recount the yowies as large hairy humanoids that have a wide flat nose, thick eyebrows, and sunken eyes. Their mouths are large with thick lips and prominent jaws. The Kuku Yalanji Tribe of Tropical North Queensland, Australia claim to have coexisted with the yowies and described them as the equivalent of what Native American tribes in Northwest America call Sasquatch.

Bedsheet Ghost (British)

The origin of the bedsheet ghost began in the 17th century, Britain. White linen burial shrouds have been used to wrap and bind the dead as most of the British at the time couldn’t afford wooden coffins. The image of a white sheet covering the deceased became closely tied to ghosts due to this and the act of covering yourself with a low budget bedsheet to spook other people had become popular. As a result of this, criminals also adopted the costume as their standard uniform to scare their victims out of their home, leading them to believe a ghost had robbed them. The appearance of the bedsheet ghost takes the silhouette of a long and drapery white sheet over the head with the eye-holes cut out in a variety of human heights.

Tek ko kui (Taiwan)

The Tek ko kui, also known as the evil spirits that reside in bamboo forests. It is said that the bamboo forest is yin in nature, therefore attract negative energy. Spirits that hide in the bamboo forests often trap travellers by turning themselves into bamboo that blocks the pathways out. If the bamboo spirit is stepped through, the Tek ko kui thrusts the travellers into the air with great strength often causing serious injury or impalement, like a boar trap. The Tek ko kui takes the form of a full-grown bamboo tilting from the side of the road blocking the pathway. There is also another version described in the book “台灣風俗誌” by Kataoka Iwa as a tall and slender ghost that will follow behind travellers. To end the pursuit of the Tek ko Kui, it is said that a traveller has to pull out a piece of silvergrass from the field and say “I am tall and you are short”. The Tek-ko-Kui will then slowly become shorter and less powerful.

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Glitch Gaia

This project explore the concept of Glitch Studies Manifesto by Rosa Menkman that views the glitch as necessary to understand the function to achieve complete transparency. Using these noise artifacts to explore new opportunities and brings to the point where it becomes something new. Incorporate this idea to create a game that has these chaotic digital artifacts to explore the relationship between perfection and imperfection.

Glitch Gaia Manifesto -

Embrace the glitch. 

It’s a side-quest, 

From the endless pursuit of perfection,

It embraces mistakes,

Digital Blemishes.

Some people view glitch as

Short-lived malfunctions,

Faulty,

Damaged,

Out of order.

On the contrary,

It reveals to us fresh perspectives.

Accepting,

Exciting,

Unexpected.

Embrace the glitch.

Embrace the glitch,

As it is everywhere,

It is technology taking on human form.

And we are imperfect.

We embody glitch.

It generates new creations,

Unnoticed possibilities,

Unhinges expectations,

Unperfects technology.

Embrace the glitch.

[andxyli]

Mother Nature 2.0

This project explores the notion of the climate crisis and how can we as digital media practitioners contribute to spreading the urgency of climate catastrophe through meaningful communication design. Climate catastrophe is advancing at a rapid pace with examples of recent events in 2020 such as Australian wildfires, disastrous floods in Indonesia, an extreme heatwave in Siberia, and the iceberg calving of triple the size of San Francisco. Nature is showing the symptoms of its decline and we might face another Ice Age extinction sooner than we anticipated. Yet many people refuse to face the issue and negates the impact of the climate crisis. Mother Nature 2.0 illustrated this issue by situating this project in the future where the only recollections of nature exist in the memory bank of an A.I. Through the form of an interactive virtual gallery viewing experience to bring a deeper connection between the public and nature.

Glaciers:

The video in the “Room of Glaciers” was inspired by the recent events of an iceberg calving of triple the size of San Francisco in February 2020 that sparked conversation around the dire importance of global warming. The disappearance of the noise waves is my interpretation of the melting glaciers. Commenting on the near future where over 400,000 glaciers in the world will have disappeared due to the extreme level of CO2 emissions, known as global warming.

Spring:

The video presented in the “Room of Spring” addresses the issue of the loss of agriculture land and biodiversity due to unplanned urbanisation which results in deforestation and habitat destruction. These actions have significantly damaged the environment, thus contributing to the cause of climate change. The video illustrates a future where all animals have gone extinct caused by the loss of forests and grasslands.

Desert:

The video In the “Room of Haboob” was inspired by the recent climate catastrophe of the Australian wildfires in mid-2019 through early 2020. The visuals exhibited a simulation of flying through a dust storm combined with ash rain as the result of wildfires. This explores the interchangeable relationship between global warming and desertification that contributes to climate change. It paints a picture of the future where the unstoppable wildfire caused by extreme heatwaves that covers the human civilisation in dust and ashes.

Humanity:

The “Room of Humanity” was inspired by a quote from the artist, Neil Harbisson: “People aren’t black and white, we’re all different shades of orange”. As an Asian Australian, this has provided me with a fresh and positive viewpoint on racial perspective and has helped me formed the direction of this particular video artwork. I intend to explore the concept of similarities in race and humanity through an abstract and non-linear lens.