FORGOTTEN CHINESE MYTHOLOGIES

Abstract

Mythology has played an integral part in almost every civilization throughout the world. Prehistoric cave paintings, etchings in stone, tombs, and monuments all suggest that, long before human beings set down their myths in words, they had already developed a belief structure. According to psychiatrist Carl Jung, “Myth is a necessary aspect of the human psyche which needs to find meaning and order in the world.” My project is to redesign and visualize text-based Chinese mythological characters into animated 3D models, in order to expose lesser known Chinese mythologies to young people. The goal of my project is to preserve and convey the story of the ancient myths in the hope to ignite young people’s curiosity and interest in myth and bring awareness and sustainability in forgotten mythologies. My project includes three components: translation of ancient mythologies, the re-imagination and visualization of mythological characters and an audience engagement platform. The first component of ancient mythologies contains the original text record of the character and its text translation for contemporary audiences. The second component of visualization contains character design, 3D modeling and an animation. I chose the animated 3D model as my medium because I believe it allows more interaction between the work and the audience. It can show different angles of the model by the audience's will. In the future application, these 3D models can be used in film, games and VR.