Lefebvre inextricably ties a dialogical relationship between the physical and the digital realm. There is also a constant feedback loop where one would conduct meaning-making as the threshold is crossed between these two realms. The pandemic has shifted the idea of physical space away from the gallery-studio-museum trifecta. Curating, exhibitions and art practices have shifted to a nebulous in-between but also stand on a plurality of possibilities.
Expanding on these possibilities is Chong Yan Chuah’s exhibition, Kyphosis, through a Looking Glass at The Backroom KL, which straddles both the physical and the virtual. The exhibition is set up in a virtual gallery space which presents as an explosion of bodies, aflame, expressing the very own corporeal self stuck in a dimension. Originally conceived on the game development platform Unreal Engine, the exhibition is presented as a virtual simulation, inviting the visitor to enter the premises of an empty gallery, pick up a controller and begin their adventure syncing into the virtual world Chong has created.