User:Chen Junyu/Graduation Project Seminar/project proposal/Proposal2

Project

The project would be an audiovisual installation. There is not specific decision of the image and sound. The sound could be recorded from inside of the plants (maybe) by contact phones, then amplify and synthesis to hearable sound. The image would base on the micro or and detailed construction of plants such as image taken by microscope, by using these images, creating 2d hand-drawing animation out of that. The work would be placed in a dark, half-closed room which provides enough silenced environment. The animation would be projected onto different spots with different scales, height and duration）in the room to build up the feeling of immersion. The path should be flexible for viewer going through, but there will also be a default path in the exhibition handbook.

Introduction

After the research for EMO(Giants and Little People)[1] I have slightly moved further with the word "Scale". Since we born in this world, the scale of the world for us is always changing, it changes with the grow and shrink of our physical body, also relies on the understanding or our emotion/feeling to the world. At a macro level, out general understanding of this world is also changing by the time, such as the conversion of public perception from Geocentrism to Heliocentrism or the changing of peoples' feeling to nature presented in the western painting history.

File:Lascaux 04.jpg

Lascaux Caves

File:Claude Gellée - Paysage avec la fuite en Égypte.jpg

Claude Gellée - Paysage avec la fuite en Égypte

Quoted from the English scripts of Earth, Sea, and Sky: Nature in Western Art: Masterpieces from The Metropolitan Museum of Art: From early times, people struggling to understand powerful natural forces imagined them as human in order to mitigate their fear of the unknown. The tradition of personifying nature continues to this day, for example in the practice of giving personal names to hurricanes.

Through advanced technique, there is no doubt that we can obeserve the function of cells which constructs our physical body, monitor every singal moment of a chemical reaction and simulate the process of a black hole having its food. On one hand the scale for measuring the world is gaining its datas, on the other hand, it doesn't bring a big difference on our perception to the world. We still live in the same model of cities or towns designed and built hundred years ago, the scale of buildings or roads didn't experience big difference in the past years. We feel save living in the artificial world, and, we are escaping from or eating out the outside nature. Maybe only when we stand alone in a wild forest without any human life's evidence, we finally can feel the original fear or the awareness of our tininess as human being did thougsand years ago.

Relation to previous practice

When I started thinking the topic of the graduation project, I traced back to my old works before I came to PZI, most of them are illustrations. Then I realised in these drawings, little people or giants, the comparison of the scale between human and other species took a large part. Surely "scale" is an effective factor in different kinds of artwork, especially in drwaings and sculptures, I still wanted to dig out what is the point attracting me so much.

Relation to a larger context

Sound

• Jez Riley French

Audible SilenceA sound artist who has spent most of his live on listening to environments. He recorded a lot of sound from small creatures, such as bees and ants, also creatures in sea such as periwinkles eating sea grass. "natural composition"

• Bernie Krause--Soundscape

Bernie Krause--the voice of the natural world The Soundscape composed by : Geophny Biophony Anthrophony Through recording sound in landscape, Bernie Krause observes the influence to environment which is caused by urban expansion.

• Raoul Brand

Sound recording inside of a 80ft chestnut tree (contact microphone) sound inside a tree

Visual

Microwold's Photography by Daniel Stoupin http://www.microworldsphotography.com/ The oldest known paintings are the Grotte Chauvet in France, the paintings show horses, rhinoceros, lions, buffalo, mammoth, abstract designs and what are possibly partial human figures. These paintings are thought as the respect for nature, or for the gain of prey

Practical steps

In order(All this practical steps are for experimenting the project sound of plants,now I am not sure if I should go further with):

• Working on prototypes for sound/visual, collect and analyse attractive installations，add--reduce.

Here are some prototypes I made.

http://vimeo.com/111947308

http://vimeo.com/112118186

References

Oliver Grau Virtual Art -- From Illusion To Immersion

Gyorgy Kepes The Nature and Art of Motion

Max Luthi The Fairytale as Art Form and Portrait of Man'

Dolf Rieser "Art and Science"

[English Scripts]Earth, Sea, and Sky: Nature in Western Art: Masterpieces from The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Michael Pollan "The Botany of Desire"