Incantation is a digital performance combining dance, motion capture and videogaming to create an immersive installation exploring in-between states, magic and myth in the digital age, and the commodification of the Asiatic body. Incantation co-opts the lotus flower as a commodified symbol of ‘Asian-ness’ and infuses it with the Asiatic body to create a hybridised form. Here the work explores being caught between worlds, a state that extends as much to our existence as mediators between physical and virtual realms as it does to the experience of growing up between cultures. The work interrogates how spiritual and ancient beliefs can coexist with technology, infusing lore with videogame aesthetics and mixing modern and mythological stories. 

The work is set within a 3D digital environment, navigable by the viewer via a video game controller. The virtual space is centred around a large murky pond, cast in a gloomy low light and overgrown with plants. The world is filled with the subtle sounds of nature, which croak, squelch, and shimmer with a soft and creepy-crawly, ASMR-like quality.

From the heart of the pond emerges a sprite-like female form, who is part plant, part human. Her green tinged body is encrusted with pond weed and in her mouth is glossy pink lotus flower. This augmented, hybrid creature takes influence from various Chinese deities and demons including one the eight immortals, He Xiangu and water spirits, Shuimu, as well as modern ‘myths’ like The Grudge’s Saeki Kayako. As a character she represents the power and agency of darker depictions of Asiatic femininity, subverting the softer, submissive stereotypes. Her hybridity calls to the feeling of being in-between, to the sense of being othered and to the artist’s experience of being mixed race. 

She performs a sequence of choreography, recorded via motion capture, and manipulated to realise other-worldly movements that go beyond the limitations of physical performance. Digital tools augment the performance compressing, glitching and suspending the body beyond the performer’s physical capabilities. 

Sian Fan is an award winning interdisciplinary artist working between Essex and London where she is artist in residence at Somerset House Studios. From 2021-22 she was the Digital Wonderlands artist in residence at the V&A Museum. She is also alumna of Sarabande Foundation where she was in residence from 2020-21. A graduate of the Fine Art Masters course at Central Saint Martins, she was awarded the prestigious Mona Hatoum Scholarship and was nominated for the Nova Award. In 2014 she graduated from the University of Brighton's BA Performance and Visual Art Dance course, where she was awarded the prize for Outstanding Creative Achievement.

She has exhibited internationally with institutions including Tate Modern, Mutek, FACT Liverpool, and the V&A, as well as producing work with Channel 4, the BBC and Facebook/Meta. Most recently she has produced a new commission for the major exhibition CUTE at Somerset House. Sian also does lectures, seminars and discussions and has worked with universities, schools and institutions including UAL, V&A Museum, Norwich University of the Arts, Goldsmiths, DanceEast and Whitechapel Gallery.