Aqua Limina, Trailer

Winner of the ArtPrize 2025 New Media Category, this new media work is a 3D game walkthrough of an art game in development, of a journey upstream a river in animism. Both animation and game in progress are made with motion captured acting by Alina Tofan @alinaa_tofan , and sound design by Yuj Archetype @yuj.archetype .

On view during ArtPrize 2025 at Aroma Labs @thearomalabs (downtown)

76 Monroe Center St NW, Grand Rapids, MI

11 AM - 7 PM

Sep 18 - Oct 4

Full Description:

How do we interact with the river when we are in its basin inhabited by spirits — human and non-human persons — following the protocols of animacy?

Premiering at ArtPrize 2025 as a Seed Grant project in Grand Rapids from September 18 - October 4, 2025, Yiou Wang’s Aqua Limina is a neo-mythic video game and a piece of new media lore which allows visitors to explore the storied landscape of a river. Entering the world, you ascend a procession upstream toward the river’s source, encountering voices and reincarnations of spirits along the way, making connections that may guide the player towards possible becoming, a narrative that parallels shamanic “spirit mediumship.” The term “avatar” came from Sanskrit, originally meaning a reincarnation of a deity. In such an ancestrally derived, expanded concept of the human or non-human person, consciousness is already fluid and we can transform into other beings infinitely. These spirits are brought to life by a blend of traditional CGI and motion capture techniques, motion capture by Alina Tofan and sound by Yuj Archetype, whose forms often reference structures of hydromythological origins as well as anatomy derived from contemporary performance research. Set in a cosmos where the river is not a resource nor an adornment but a densely inhabited spiritual collective, Aqua Limina transports visitors to an ancient future myth offering a counter-paradigm to modern techno-rationalism and human-centric ideology.

Director, UE developer, animator: Yiou Wang

Performance artist (motion capture): Alina Tofan

Sound artist: Yuj Archetype