Ephemeroptera (Foram)
2022
Three-channel video, 3D-printed sculptures
Dimensions Variable
Image courtesy of Chronus Art Center
Ephemeroptera (Morning Mushroom)
2021
Three-channel video, custom aluminum panels, foam
Dimensions Variable
Ephemeroptera (Foram)
2022
Three-channel video, 3D-printed sculptures
Dimensions Variable
Ephemeroptera (Morning Mushroom)
2021
Three-channel video, custom aluminum panels, foam
Dimensions Variable
Ephemeroptera (蜉蝣, fú yóu), the most ancient aquatic insects that are often used along with the morning mushroom in the Chinese language to represent the ephemeral cycle of life. Zhuangzi (Chuang-tzu 莊子), the late 4th century BC Daoist philosopher, famously wrote about the incomprehensibility of the great: “The morning mushroom does not know of the waxing and waning of the moon.”
Ephemeroptera includes two video installations: Morning Mushroom (2021) and Foram (2022). The ghostly images are generated by a generative adversarial network (GAN) trained on the hand-made dataset created by the artist including time-lapse photographs of the biomimetic structures formed through the chemical reaction between metal salts and sodium silicate solution; microscopic photographs of gravel samples collected from salt flats, deserts, rock glaciers, and volcanoes, as well as relics of human extraction such as abandoned mines and furnaces. When metal-salt seeds are dropped into sodium silicate solution (also known as water glass), there form complex hollow precipitated structures reminiscent of a variety of biological forms including those of plants, fungi, and insects. First studied by alchemists, these biomimetic formations and processes have sparked the 19th-century scientific speculations about mechanisms of life from the inorganic world and continue to provide new insight for the origin of early Earth’s metabolism.
In the installation Morning Mushroon (2021), three aluminum plates in the shape of microscopic gravel are suspended in the darkness, on which projected shimmering petrified landscapes and primordial organisms. Beneath are four floor sculptures with smooth agglomeration, reflecting the flickering light from the video, as if they were stalagmites formed by the melting and dripping metal, or mysterious organisms taking shape. Foram (2022) shows variants of algorithmically synthesized primitive organismal bodies of Foraminifera. These single-celled organisms form tiny shells by secreting calcium or silica, and their remains become deposited layers of chalk, limestone, and reef. As one of the oldest protozoa, its outward-growing inorganic body hints to climatic and ecological change.
By juxtaposing the self-organizing intelligence of inorganic matter at micro and macro levels with the "training" and "learning" intelligence of machines, the exploration of thought and intelligence are extended to complex phenomena beyond the biological realm. The color and textural data of the moving image is extracted and transformed into a flowing auditory spectrum, forming a dynamic soundscape of the on-site installation. In the entangled, folded, and extended physical and digital time-space, geochemical transformations and morphogenesis that predate human existence resonate with our contemporary reverie of artificial life and intelligence.
2022
Three-channel video, 3D-printed sculptures
Dimensions Variable
Ephemeroptera (Morning Mushroom)
2021
Three-channel video, custom aluminum panels, foam
Dimensions Variable
Ephemeroptera (蜉蝣, fú yóu), the most ancient aquatic insects that are often used along with the morning mushroom in the Chinese language to represent the ephemeral cycle of life. Zhuangzi (Chuang-tzu 莊子), the late 4th century BC Daoist philosopher, famously wrote about the incomprehensibility of the great: “The morning mushroom does not know of the waxing and waning of the moon.”
Ephemeroptera includes two video installations: Morning Mushroom (2021) and Foram (2022). The ghostly images are generated by a generative adversarial network (GAN) trained on the hand-made dataset created by the artist including time-lapse photographs of the biomimetic structures formed through the chemical reaction between metal salts and sodium silicate solution; microscopic photographs of gravel samples collected from salt flats, deserts, rock glaciers, and volcanoes, as well as relics of human extraction such as abandoned mines and furnaces. When metal-salt seeds are dropped into sodium silicate solution (also known as water glass), there form complex hollow precipitated structures reminiscent of a variety of biological forms including those of plants, fungi, and insects. First studied by alchemists, these biomimetic formations and processes have sparked the 19th-century scientific speculations about mechanisms of life from the inorganic world and continue to provide new insight for the origin of early Earth’s metabolism.
In the installation Morning Mushroon (2021), three aluminum plates in the shape of microscopic gravel are suspended in the darkness, on which projected shimmering petrified landscapes and primordial organisms. Beneath are four floor sculptures with smooth agglomeration, reflecting the flickering light from the video, as if they were stalagmites formed by the melting and dripping metal, or mysterious organisms taking shape. Foram (2022) shows variants of algorithmically synthesized primitive organismal bodies of Foraminifera. These single-celled organisms form tiny shells by secreting calcium or silica, and their remains become deposited layers of chalk, limestone, and reef. As one of the oldest protozoa, its outward-growing inorganic body hints to climatic and ecological change.
By juxtaposing the self-organizing intelligence of inorganic matter at micro and macro levels with the "training" and "learning" intelligence of machines, the exploration of thought and intelligence are extended to complex phenomena beyond the biological realm. The color and textural data of the moving image is extracted and transformed into a flowing auditory spectrum, forming a dynamic soundscape of the on-site installation. In the entangled, folded, and extended physical and digital time-space, geochemical transformations and morphogenesis that predate human existence resonate with our contemporary reverie of artificial life and intelligence.