[ISEA2020] Artists Statement: Shaoyu Su & Weidi Zhang — Hongshan Experiment II: Celestial

Artist Statement

Tags: Interactive, Multi-channel, Video Installation

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.

Video: Hongshan Experiment II: Celestial

  • Shaoyu Su is a new media artist, cinematographer and curator. His artistic practices and research employ interdisciplinary methodologies from computer graphics, photography, physics and fiction, investigating concepts about deep spacetime-mining: alternative projection from ancient history to the far future. One of his artistic goal is to evoke the subtle grey area in our brain between perception of reality and fantasy through world-building. His works have shown internationally, at venues such as J.Paul Getty Museum, International Symposium on Electronic Art(ISEA), IEEE PacificVis, Today Art Museum Beijing and Vortex Immersion Dome L.A. shaoyusu.com
  • Weidi Zhang is a new media artist and visual designer. Her current research and media art practice interest is investigating the possibilities of non-linear narrativity and semantic meanings through intelligent system design and spatial visualization in immersive environments. Her works are featured at different venues internationally, such as the SIGGRAPH 2019 art gallery, Japan Media Arts Festival ‘Juried Selections’, Times Art Museum, IEEE VisAP, SwissNex Gallery, etc. Currently, she is a Ph.D. candidate in the Media Arts and Technology Program at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She holds her MFA degree in Art + Technology at California Institute of the Arts. As a visual designer and concept artist, she was selected into WDI (Walt Disney Imagineering) blue sky project working as a concept artist in 2015. She has been working as a visual designer in the award-winning design studio (30sixty) in LA for key art and package design for TV shows. zhangweidi.com