The Dark Side of Dream
2025
by Yiyang Sun, and other SCAA members
by Yiyang Sun, and other SCAA members
Overview
The Dark Side of Dreams is a large-scale immersive exploration project in the style of a musical, jointly created by Shanghai Muwai Culture Media Co., Ltd. and the SCAA Spatial Computing Application Laboratory of the China Academy of Art. Based on the fantasy adventure theme of the original Chinese animated IP—Daddy Transformed into a Dinosaur Toy with Only Six-Year-Old Memories—it crafts a world of imagination and offers the emotional value of warm companionship.
Through the medium of musical theater, the project presents players with a surreal, boundless adventure. Dream dolls—strange and fantastical beings born from forgotten and discarded adult dreams—are summoned. Dancing and singing, they journey toward a massive, mysterious object, voicing their hopeful chant: “Toward a new world, toward utopia!” They sail toward a blissful shore belonging solely to dreams and beauty. Yet, are all things as perfect as they appear? When dreams become lost, twisted into obsession, exploited, and driven to the brink—can even the most beautiful dreams turn into nightmares? And when we break free from bonds, yearning for liberty and new beginnings, might the light we seek conceal an unsettling darkness?
Exhibitions