Yesterday’s Skybox: NBA LIVE 2005 1-On-1 System Modification appropriates and hacks the 2004 video game NBA LIVE 2005 by combining legacy modding tools with contemporary AI systems, reconfiguring it into an endless one-on-one match. By accessing obsolete patch editors from an earlier era of game modification, the work replaces the game’s skybox and urban street-court architecture with AI-generated textures derived from contemporary images of war-damaged buildings and smoke-filled skies. In this transformation, the “skybox” of yesterday becomes uncannily aligned with the mediated skies of today—images of conflict that circulate, are reframed, and are repeatedly consumed across contemporary media environments.

The project originates from the artist’s childhood fascination with the one-on-one mode and its virtual skies in NBA LIVE 2005. Within these American street-court environments, the sky functioned as an imagined elsewhere. For a player growing up in China, the game operated as a digital gateway to Western popular culture, projecting an open and optimistic image of the future during a period marked by globalization and economic expansion.

More than two decades later, the artist returns to NBA LIVE 2005, replacing its original skybox with textures derived from contemporary war-damaged environments. By staging an endless one-on-one basketball match, the work compresses past and present into a single audiovisual field, exposing a rupture between earlier projections of the future and the mediated realities of the present.

《昨日的天空盒：〈NBA LIVE 2005〉一对一系统模组化改造》通过结合早期模组工具与当代人工智能系统，挪用并破解发布于2004年的视频游戏《NBA LIVE 2005》，将游戏篡改成了一场永不停息的一对一比赛；同时，作品通过调用来自早期游戏修改时代的过时补丁编辑器，将游戏中的天空盒（skybox）与城市街头球场建筑替换为由AI生成的纹理，这些纹理来源于当代战争中受损建筑与被烟雾笼罩的天空图像。在这一转化过程中，「昨日的天空盒」与今日媒介化的天空形成了一种诡异的重合——那些关于冲突的图像，在当代媒介环境中不断流通、被重新框定，并被反复消费。

作品源于作者少时对《NBA LIVE 2005》一对一模式中的虚拟天空（天空盒）的迷恋。游戏中美国街球场上方的天空，曾作为一种「彼处」的媒介想象存在。对于成长于中国的玩家而言，这款游戏曾是通往西方流行文化的数字入口，在全球化与经济高速扩张的时代背景下，它投射出一种开放而乐观的未来图景。

二十多年后，艺术家重新回到《NBA LIVE 2005》，并将其原有的天空盒替换为源自当代战争废墟环境的纹理。通过构建一场永不停歇的一对一篮球比赛，作品将过去与现在压缩进同一个视听场域之中，揭示出早期未来想象与当下媒介现实之间的断裂。