[Photo provided to China Daily]

He is sensitive to high-tech and always keeping an eye on problems that come with human application of technology, he says. Since 2005, the artist has been making his ink animation trilogy. The first explores conflicts caused by energy crisis and the second focuses on crisis brought by astronautics and biotechnology. The second is now at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

The name of the trilogy is taken from the ancient Chinese myth book Classic of Mountains and Seas, dating more than 2,000 years ago.

Qiu says he puts what's happening now into an ancient context, which allows us to see the current society from a distance.

In Qiu's real-meets-virtual world, everything becomes a living monster. Surveillance cameras on streets are one-eyed flying beasts; garbage trucks are elephant-shaped; treadmills are running wolves. Other things turn into fancy items as human beings change themselves in a virtual world.

For Qiu, the most challenging part is to turn Chinese ink paintings into 3-D animation projects - the former stresses on abstraction and imagination while the latter needs things to look as real as possible.

"I have to find a balance between them, to have the spirit of Chinese ink painting while giving it a 3-D presentation," says Qiu.

A sea of clouds in his film, he says, is a good example of such balance.