Real Virtuality: Creating the next normal with the crutches of technology

BEATBOX MONK, JAPAN

Yogetsu Akasaka, a Japanese musician and Buddhist monk, presenting a livestream beatboxing performance at his home in Tokyo. Akasaka has become a viral phenomenon with musical tracks marrying religious chanting with beatboxing, with his Heart Sutra Looping Remix being viewed on YouTube many million times since it was posted last May

EXPENSIVE DAYS, SINGAPORE

Blockchain entrepreneur Vignesh Sundaresan, also known by his pseudonym MetaKovan, shows the digital artwork ‘Everydays: The First 5,000 Days’ by artist Beeple at his home in Singapore. In March, the programmer bought the world’s most expensive NFT for $69.3 million, highlighting how virtual work is establishing itself as a new creative genre

A TOKEN ART, INDIA

Natlet, an artwork by Susanta Kumar Panda and Ramakanta Samantaray, highlights the perfect beauty of nature and the fatality of unchecked rampant urban expansion. It’s among a series of artworks presented by Terrain.Art, India’s first blockchain-powered platform and the  brainchild of Aparajita Jain. The platform mints a corresponding NFT for each work on Ethereum, establishing its authenticity and  eliminating fakes

STARRY NIGHT, CANADA 

Assistant director Nicolas Babillon calibrates the set-up before a preview of Imagine Van Gogh, an immersive digital art exhibition at the Vancouver Convention Centre in Canada. The event is based on French photographer Albert Plécy‘s concept of ‘image totale’, the feeling of being surrounded by an artwork, to experience their energy, emotion, and beauty

STARRY NIGHT-2, CANADA

Created by French artistic directors Annabelle Mauger and Julien Baron, the massive projections create a space where people experience van Gogh’s art in ways unlike traditional museums. The brushstrokes appear several feet wide, as original canvasses are expanded and fragmented, then projected onto the walls and floor in unusual shapes to emphasise the mesmerising exaggerations and distortions of van Gogh’s work

MEET GEISHA PROJECT, JAPAN

A geisha rehearses for an online drinking party with clients in Hakone in Kanagawa Prefecture. With the pandemic forcing the postponement of the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games and shutting down international travel, the Meet Geisha project explored other business options due to the drop in tourism and offered their traditional arts in the most modern of formats—Zoom calls

KINKY PLAY, USA

Dominatrix Madame Margherite rehearses in front of her laptop in her dungeon ahead of a virtual strip club event livestreamed on September 4, 2020, in Los Angeles, California. Until the pandemic, Margherite was known to specialise in pet play, running a human zoo filled with kinky clients who paid $300 per hour to roleplay as her pet

DIGITAL DRAG, ITALY

At an atelier filled with shelves overflowing with wigs, feathers and hundreds of stage costumes, Karma B prepares for her livestreamed performance on StageIt. The aim of the first online drag festival had been to allow drag and LGBT performers who have had live shows cancelled, to perform for their fans

VITAMIN CLOWN, GERMANY

Clinic clown ‘Vitamins’ (real name Ute von Koerber) conjures up surprises and humours 11-year-old Pauline online, who is recovering at a hospital in Cottbus, Germany. In 2012, Ute co-founded the association Lachen hilft e.V. She combines play, improvisation and therapy to help heal ailing patients

MEMORABLY GROUNDED, JAPAN

Katsuo Enuoe and his daughter enjoy the trimmings of a business class cabin and soak up the sights of Florence and Rome—without ever leaving Tokyo. Tapping into a growing virtual reality (VR) travel market for Japanese holidaymakers grounded by Covid restrictions, First Airlines provides virtual reality flight experiences, including 360-degree tours of cities and meals

ROW YOUR BOAT, CHINA 

The scenic route starts from Ping Hu Qiu Yue, also known as the ‘Autumn Moon Over the Calm Lake’ and gently glides over spots like ‘Two Peaks Piercing the Clouds’.  Visitors wearing VR holographic glasses experience riding a boat on the West Lake during the 3rd China International Import Expo at the National Exhibition and Convention Center in Shanghai, China

CYBER SINGER, FRANCE

Japanese virtual singer Hatsune Miku—an animated 16-year-old with saucer eyes and lengthy aquamarine pigtails—performs on stage during a concert at the Zenith concert hall, in Paris. One of Japan’s most famous pop stars, Miku is a singing voice synthesiser featured in over 100,000 songs and has performed sold-out 3D concerts worldwide. Miku has gone from being a vocal synthesiser to a collaboratively built cyber celebrity with a global user community

VIRTUAL WIFE, JAPAN 

Akihiko Kondo (35), a Tokyo school administrator, poses for a photograph with a doll modelled after VR singer Hatsune Miku at his apartment, wearing their wedding rings after marrying her hologram in Tokyo. Akihiko’s mother refused an invitation to her only son’s wedding. Gatebox, the company that produces the hologram device featuring Miku, has issued a ‘marriage certificate’, which certifies that a human and a virtual character have wed ‘beyond dimensions’

SUMMER VACATIONS, CHINA

For children in Guizhou, summer vacation days out means a VR experience in a showroom of new technology at a tourism attraction in Xingyi in southwest China’s Guizhou province

TRIP TO THE ZOO, JAPAN 

A RakuRo autonomous self-driving robot developed by ZMP Inc moves past a zebra at the Chiba Zoological Park, Japan. The online event allows children quarantined at home to virtually tour the zoo through a remote controlled robot with a 360-degree camera

CHEF’S HAT, MYANMAR 

Young chef Moe Myint May Thu films a cooking video at home in Yangon. From boiled catfish soup to spicy fried frog, this eight-year-old in pyjamas and a chef’s hat delights audiences with her culinary prowess in online classes, at a time the nation has been told to stay at home to be safe from the virus

SOARING BALLET, KENYA

Lydia Akoth (10), a member of Project Elimu, practises dancing on a sofa at home during a ballet lesson via a mobile phone at the Kibera slum in Nairobi, Kenya. Project Elimu is a non-profit founded by former professional Kenyan dancer Mike Wamaya to provide extracurricular activities to schools within informal settlements, empowering children and teachers