Mixanthropy: Animorphosis
2022-2025, holographic display of 3-channel video, 15 minutes on loop

Based on the 2023 hologram installation Mixanthropy by Yiou Wang and Meichun Cai (SXSW Version)Mixanthropy is a holographic art installation imagining a shapeshifting journey of the body in transition—both visual and behavioral. It encapsulates a deity’s potential to glide between versatile body forms, drawing on the motif of animal-human metamorphosis and identity plurality. Inspired by a range of myths and folklores, from the Greek pantheon to East Asian bestiary reincarnations, the work integrates technologies of motion capture, CGI, and self-trained AI developed in 2022.

Transitioning between animal and human states, Mixanthropy delves into divine hybridity through body transformations rooted in anatomical isomorphism. Morphing skin textures mimic diverse environments, using datasets re-generated by AI. The hybrid mixanthrope morphs into other bodies, with motion capture (mocap) retargeted to human and nonhuman forms. This work synchronizes motion—an externalization of the intrinsic psyche—with 3D body deformation, metamorphosing into beings of otherness.

In the process of creation, Meichun and Yiou performed a series of different animist movements while imagining themselves transitioning between their original species, Homo sapiens, and another species. Using Optitrack motion capture, Meichun and Yiou choreographed and personally embodied the movements of the shapeshifting beings.