“Hongshan Experiment II: Celestial” by Shaoyu Su, Weidi Zhang

Title:

Hongshan Experiment II: Celestial

Artist(s) and People Involved:

Exhibiting Artist(s):

Shaoyu Su
Weidi Zhang

Symposium:

ISEA2020: 26th International Symposium on Electronic Art

Medium:

Multi-channel interactive video installation

Duration:

4:38

Artist Statement:

Hongshan Experiment II: Celestial, is a multi-channel interactive video installation. Its creative process aimed to draw a visceral artery between deep time mining of archeology and surfaced evidence on climate change using meteorological data, 3D reconstruction of Hongshan excavation site and planetary database.

Hongshan Experiment focuses on the coupling of scientific data visualization and artistic world-building to experiment with the equilibrium between human and non-human; culture and nature; past and future. Curiosity and concern around archeology, environmental science and astrophysics were raised by audiovisual abstraction, translation and generation. As the second iteration of Hongshan Experiment I: a Possible Outcome, HE II: Celestial takes a space voyage in search of the “outcome” through computer vision.

The animation adopted the rich affinity with carbon allotropes. Radiocarbon gives a time tag to archeological diggings. Carbon footprint helps people understand the impact of personal behaviour on global warming. As an essential building block of living beings on Earth, carbon represents human’s signature in communication with possible extraterrestrial intelligence. Energy transformation was also articulated by a customized shader simulating the ice melting and freezing.