Pure Land: Inside the Mogao Grottoes at Dunhuang is such an attempt. Combining high-resolution photography with 3D modelling and animations, the exhibit provides visitors with an unparalleled experience of this ancient art.
What is so striking about the experience, beside the eye-popping 3D (far more impressive than that used in 3D movies), is the feeling of viewing ancient Buddhist artworks (some over a thousand years old) not only in a location which is not their actual location, but by wearing 3D glasses. The juxtaposition of ancient and modern is spine-tingling! It is one thing to view the past in the spaces of the modern (in, for example, museums and art galleries), a step even further removed to experience it in the manner presented here. Animations that pop out in front of your face add an interpretative element to the visual history, and the guide herself spent as much time explaining the technology behind the exhibition as she did the murals.
These two elements sharply underscore the (seemingly contradictory) nature of the experience. Should I be writing about 2nd century BC Asian art, or the experience of standing in a circular space in the dark, wearing 3D glasses? Even in the moment, I was aware of the dual nature of the experience, and wondered not whether it was a good thing or a bad thing (clearly the whole endeavour, as an attempt at both preservation of the actual site, and a desire to showcase it to the public as mentioned above, is a good thing), but whether this representation was enough. I was overwhelmed with a desire to see the real thing - an inclination that somewhat goes against the whole point of the exhibition. But I was also aware of the space around me: circular (an uncommon shape for a gallery space), in the dark (like being in a movie theatre), 360 degrees (I could turn to face any direction and continue to see what I was supposed to see), and - rather strikingly - the black silhouettes of my class-mates standing near and around me. Furthermore, the room was in a building that I spend a great deal of time working in - a building whose architectural design has intrigued me since I first arrived at CityU. The room's existence having been unknown to me all this time, discovering that it existed in the building felt like stumbling upon a secret grotto: this allusion to the Mogao Grottoes that so stunningly came to life in that 'chamber' was not lost on me.
This combination of sensations and thoughts led to a novel experience, one that transcended what I might ordinarily have had seeing Buddhist art in a normal gallery. As I left, I took off my 3D glasses, and rubbed my sore eyes. My final impression then, was the one that connected it to 3D cinema: a headache inducing experience that loses its novelty after the first 5 minutes of watching a film; an exhibition technology that I hope will turn out to be as long-lived as earlier experiments in 3D in film history. And that position, when placed against the art that was on display in that room, is a contradiction.
