Ziyi Wang

‘Life of Song‘ is a virtual restoration of a village from Chinese Song dynasty. Throughout the past five thousand years of Chinese history, many of the historical heritage sites have disappeared. Current Chinese generations are not educated in the old ways, and do not have enough access to traditional practices, and the magnificent architecture. Virtual reality is a technology that has potential in cultural heritage restoration. Through these digital means, we can develop and present cultural relics in a most original effect. This is a practical way to restore the original appearance of cultural heritage and to visually recreate what is gone. VR also has a unique ability of bringing audiences into the digital environment to fully sense these surroundings as if they were actually there. It is accessible for different age ranges. For this project, I researched archives, read the ancient architecture book Ying Zao Fa Shi, and studed architecture in ancient Chinese paintings. I used this research to create a virtual space that describes and recovers sites from the ancient Song dynasty.