On the night of October 29th, 1969, a graduate student at UCLA typed five letters “l o g i n” in front of the screen and sent it to another computer at Stanford University. However, after just sending two letters “l o,” the system crashed due to overload. This was the first transmission between two computers in human history, and Login became the word for logging into the Internet.

Today, we scroll endlessly through Instagram on our digital devices, play survival games in the virtual wilderness, and hold meetings and learn in online spaces. The time spent staring at the screen may have exceeded looking at the real world.

At this moment, we are at the junction of an era. The top minds and companies on the planet have gathered into a huge force, trying to use technology to transfer people’s thoughts, five senses, and even the entire society to the virtual realm bit by bit. Human beings will devote themselves more fully to the digital world, transcending the limitations of the body, buildings, and national boundaries, in hopes of achieving unprecedented freedom.

LOG ING is a combination of Login and Logging, symbolizing the process of human beings migrating to virtual places through “the Internet,” “computing,” and “recording” - migrating to a place that may be better, more chaotic, or more spectacular than where we are now. We call this constantly changing imaginary kingdom the metaverse.

Since the metaverse is the ultimate state of human beings in virtual life, we believe that its appearance does not, and should not, only reflect the existence of digital technology, but also have warmth and a sense of humanity. Therefore, at the point where visitors first enter the exhibition area, we deliberately abandoned the fluorescent colors commonly used in technological themes and used a warm orange corridor to create an abstract space, metaphorically symbolizing the unknown and the human side of the metaverse.

What is the metaverse? Some say it is an online game, some say it is an extension of virtual reality, and some say it is the Internet of the next generation. People’s desires for virtuality always evolve with the times. There are two installations in this area that use yarn as a carrier. The first one plays various video clips from classic films, movies, and conferences that explore the virtual world from 1962 to the present. Being among the layers of images is just like our experience of the metaverse—between reality and surreality, between accessibility and inaccessibility.

The metaverse is neither realized nor can it be defined by just a single person. The second installation presents an abstract dynamic image. It is like a living black shadow that continues using an AI voice to talk about the definition of the metaverse. These definitions come from the participation of different visitors, so everyone’s views on the metaverse can become part of the exhibition.

Thirty years have passed since the word “Metaverse” first appeared. During this period, every home has a computer, then people can go on the Internet with mobile phones, and then refrigerators can also be connected, and, recently, Elon Musk just uploaded information from his brain to the cloud. Human beings have invested tremendous efforts in “immersing themselves in virtuality,” and they are still continuing.

This area explores the technologies and conditions required to live freely in the virtual world. Ranging from somatosensory devices, such as AR, VR, and MR, to network computing and transmission capacity, blockchain and NFT, etc., these are all necessary to realize the metaverse.

This area displays examples of the metaverse in today’s life. The three themed scenes where the virtual world intertwines with the real world include identity, entertainment, and education, which displays the current applications related to the metaverse, so visitors can actually experience what life will look like in the future.

Visitors can actually use their “bodies” to feel and experience the content closest to the metaverse on site through three types of installations and six facets, including HTC’s metaverse platform VIVERSE and the VR escape game Cat Art - Paintings Within Paintings developed with the IP authorized by Japanese illustrator Shu Yamamoto, as well as NFT figurines of Taiwanese illustrator Yellow Book, etc. Visitors can further explore the scene using AR and VR to discover the strange imagination that can only be realized in the metaverse.

In addition to visible physical displays, this area also has four AR areas corresponding to the themed scenes. First, find posters made of special materials in the room, then, scan them with your cell phone to use Web AR to see the strange world superimposed in the room.

Metakao is Meta and Takao, but also Me and Takao. This area explores how interpersonal relationships, social systems, and self-identity will evolve when the metaverse is realized. We used immersive projection combined with terrain installations to metaphorically represent Kaohsiung’s seaside image. Breaking away from daily scenes, images, and physical sensations, and then integrate the visual, content, and physical sensations into a unique exhibition experience.

We partnered with Taiwanese online media brand BIOS Monthly in this area. When the metaverse is realized, how we live our lives and our daily behaviors may be completely different from now. BIOS Monthly invited 58 celebrities from various fields, including legal experts, philosophy promoters, visual creators, novelists, etc., to jointly explore fantasies and issues in the virtual world. At the same time, all the visitors can also participate on site through their mobile phones, allowing ideas to become real-time information presented in the exhibition environment, so as to jointly change the digitally created landscape.