"The Rural Construction China Thought Exhibition" is launched on Decentraland, allowing you to experience the urban landscape of Beibei 80 years ago in a virtual space
Reproducing the urban landscape of Beibei in the 1930s and 1940s, Decentraland's virtual space synchronized a month-long online exhibition.This article was published on ChainNews, author: FromTheSoil.
From April 9 to May 7, 2021, the "Rural Construction China Thought Exhibition," organized by the Collaborative Innovation Center for Space Production and Local Practice Research Group of China Academy of Art and Visual China, was held at the Gaofan Photography Art Museum and Gaofan Memorial Hall in Xiaoshan District, Hangzhou. Led by curator Professor Huang Sunquan, the team conducted several years of fieldwork and unfolded a narrative through textual stories that is completely different from the visually presented "contemporary art exhibitions."
At the same time, the exhibition has three significant breakthroughs: First, the curatorial team, in collaboration with the Internet Society Research Institute and the MetaDAO group, recreated the prototype of the Beibei urban landscape plan from the 1930s-1940s using the decentralized network platform Decentraland, and simultaneously held a month-long online exhibition in the virtual space of "Beibei"; second, a completely open and continuously updated database was established using the currently popular roam research, allowing those interested in rural construction materials to read all the stories of this exhibition at any time, as well as the field reports from the curatorial team in the near future; third, the documentary stories, charts, films, etc., from this exhibition received sponsorship from Sam, the founder of arweave.org (who was a speaker at the fifth Internet Society Annual Conference), and will be stored in a theoretically everlasting space, permanently residing on the distributed cloud of the blockchain.
Online Exhibition on DCL
Decentraland virtual space Beibei
Since 2020, the exhibition team has conducted relevant research on Beibei (now Beibei District, Chongqing), the first city of modern urban planning in China, and collaborated with the MetaDAO group to place the Beibei urban model from the 1930s and 1940s on the decentralized network platform Decentraland. Visitors can log in to Decentraland via PC to enter Beibei City and revisit the Beibei of 80 years ago, viewing iconic places in the history of modern urban planning in China, such as the General Education Museum, the Western Research Center, the Library, and Beibei Hot Spring Park. In the 1930s and 1940s, Beibei became a place for iconic figures in rural construction, such as Liang Shuming, Tao Xingzhi, and Yan Yangchu, to establish experimental schools for rural construction during the wartime rear; it was also the wartime residence of Lao She and Liang Shiqiu, which incubated works such as "Four Generations Under One Roof," "Cremation," and "Essays from the Elegant Studio."
Beibei Monthly Cover
Recreating the Beibei of the 1930s and 1940s in Decentraland, an immutable "future land" built on the Ethereum blockchain, is an experiment in "historical communities of the future." Studying history is a way to move towards the future, and the research on the history of rural construction in China allows past stories to be told by present people to future people through decentralized networks. This holds richer significance than any current physical exhibition.
Game Mode
In the virtual space of "Beibei," players can freely experience the appearance of Beibei City in the 1940s. We have set up an "Aerial Garden" at the Zhongzheng Road Garden, where players can float in mid-air by stepping onto the central lift platform to overlook the distant "Western Academy of Sciences" and the entire streetscape of Zhongzheng Road.
Western Academy of Sciences
Aerial Garden
At the same time, a flight route around "Beibei" City has been arranged along Zhongzheng Road. Players can simply wait at the marked spot for the plane to land and then leap aboard (remember to jump to board), following the plane to overlook the entire landscape of "Beibei" City.
Aerial view of Beibei
In the central area of Zhongzheng Road, a screen has been reserved for live streaming the annual meeting of rural construction practitioners. Players can watch the recorded annual meeting as soon as they enter the virtual "Beibei" space, and they can also receive a badge for visiting the exhibition from the machine behind them------POAP. (This may have value as a future exhibition ticket)
Online live streaming of the annual meeting of rural construction practitioners in China
Online annual meeting check-in
In the main building, we set up a group that can play recorded interviews from the research in Beibei, allowing listeners to hear stories from Beibei residents about history and their own experiences. Following the stairs at both ends leads to the space of the "online exhibition," where everyone can experience an exhibition experience that is not available in offline exhibitions.
Decentraland users listen to the 2020 Beibei interview recordings
Online exhibition space
Online exhibition space
"New China" section of the online exhibition
"Poverty Alleviation" section of the online exhibition
Virtual Space "Beibei"
Login Method
Log in on PC via link to enter the interface.
Click "play," and for first-time logins, you can register with Metamask or Fortmatic, and link your account with Decentraland.
Once you complete character creation, you can enter "Beibei" for a tour!
