In 2018, Taipei-based musician Meuko! Meuko! released her well-received album Ghost Island, a title that refers to what anxious young inhabitants often call their city. Following the dystopian and compressed energetics of that album’s soundscapes, the new media art group NAXS corp. has crafted dense urban and fantastical VR environments haunted by abandoned statues, floating ruins, stray dogs, and hieroglyphics. NAXS and Meuko 3D scanned the streetscapes, temples, and Meuko's childhood hometown, trying to convey the humid atmosphere of the island in the virtual world. Based on the techniques NAXS have developed for their VR theater project Render Ghost, the visual set of Ghost Island runs on a real-time engine (Unity3D), aiming to create an immersive experience. Each performance contains improvisation and elements of new works, combining disciplines of improvisation with conceptual ideas of noise, clubbing, strange sounds, field recordings that conjure at times ritualistic performances with sources tracing back to Taiwan’s own spiritual landscape. As the music traverses the anti-utopian ruins of Ghost Island and a cyber dreamscape, you may find that this is not a fantasy or a fable, but the mythological post-digital reality in which we all live.

Warning: High noise level during this performance. Ear protection is available upon request.