VIP Room

The VIP Room was a tour of newly commissioned installation and performance art by Bejing based 8gg that was fun, visually-stunning, hands-on, technological and thought-provoking.

Renowned for working on a large scale, 8gg (artists Jiang Haiqing and Fu Yu) created an interactive installation incorporating an array of huge computer keys and projected imagery, where changes in sound and vision are controlled by the actions of visitors. Sitting on each key causes a different sound or video clip to be played on the big screen.

The VIP Room toured to two UK venues as an exhibition (Cornerhouse, Manchester, as part of folly's VELOCITY festival, and The Space4 at Peterborough Museum), and two as a performance event called the air been broken, at http Gallery, London and Urban Screens, Manchester. 

This flexible touring model meant that the VIP Room became part of both a major contemporary art exhibition, Outside the Box, at Cornerhouse, and an exciting digital exhibition at a local authority-run gallery in Peterborough as part of China Now, a UK-wide celebration of the very best of modern China. Meanwhile the performance events offered an engaging experience for an artist/producer audience at http in London, and reached audiences new to digital art as a public realm performance in Manchester's city centre.

After the national tour concluded, folly and 8gg were delighted to be invited to showcase The VIP Room internationally as part of the Shanghai eArts Festival in October 2008.