Studio-born: A designer working on the details of Tianyu’s face in Beijing. — China Daily/ANN
Beijing: Her face is angelic. Her presence enigmatic. She can be a poet’s muse at daybreak and a musician’s inspiration by sundown.
She can dance and she can sing, and she brings history alive like no other.
Meet Tianyu, a virtual maiden on a mission to acquaint the world with Chinese heritage and culture, who has garnered millions of followers since her April debut on short video platforms Douyin and TikTok.
Modelled on the flying Apsaras (celestial singers and dancers) of Mogao Caves’ murals in Dunhuang, Gansu province, Tianyu was incubated in a digital studio in a prelude to the fusion of real-world heritage and the metaverse.
She almost immediately began dominating screen time with her lifelike expressions, her nimble-footed jin dance (a unique dance style found in the Mogao murals) and her remarkable skills in playing the pipa (a four-stringed Chinese musical instrument) depicted in the frescoes of the Buddhist caves.
“We wanted to create a virtual human different from the fashionable digital avatars our millennials are so sold on,” says Zheng Yicheng, the manager of Tianyu studio where the digital damsel was born.
“Hence, Tianyu has a very traditional countenance and style. She is the beacon of Chinese culture.”
In the past couple of years, China has seen an explosion of “virtual people”.
Luxury brands have used artificial intelligence avatars to influence tech-savvy youths; social media platforms have offered users virtual doppelgangers; and celebrities have augmented their fan base in a pandemic world with digital icons.
Tianyu was born and bred to become a class apart.
Zheng joined the studio last September and started preparations to create her.
In three months, Tianyu was ready to make heads turn.
The formal public launch happened on April 22. Within a month of going online, she was on the Douyin hot list.
The digital avatar is unique in many ways. The glow on her face, the dark eyebrows, the exquisite mouth and the peach blossom make-up are not merely coincidental, but the result of expert-level research on how women of the Tang Dynasty (618-907) prepped for public appearances.
A leading “lady” on Douyin, Tianyu has 2.25 million fans, with more than 10 million likes for her videos.
The clips tell stories that Tianyu gathered from different pieces of a mural where she was from. — China Daily/ANN
