Hi Definition 3D animation Installation,
as both life-sized projection or 32"
monitor inside video object
Digital life is ultimately flawed and fleeting, even more so than biological life. From the moment of creation, digital life is marked by myriad glitches and a rapid descent into obsolescence. Hence digital life is no more than a mere illusion for a more base reality, that which is Digital Death. This work was created by embracing ideas that seem to be contradictory by simultaneously using two sets of paired software tools, on two separate pieces of software that are oppose one another. The first set employs a biological growth algorithm. What I did was to both "grow" and "ungrow" a cherry tree simulation at the same time. The second set regards the passage of time. I both added and removed time simultaneously, using editing software. By using tools that exist in paradoxical relation to one another, I created a Taoist tree that eats itself even as it is being born, endlessly cycling - in a state of Digital Death. The piece was first shown in a two-person exhibition entitled Rendering Time, with the artist and my former student, Alex M. Lee at Gallery Dos in Seoul, Korea. A catalog written by Nicholas O'Brien discusses our work in the context of contemporary media, representation and proposes that digital structures necessitate a contemporary version of the historical concept of the Sublime. A downloadable version of the catalog can be retrieved below.
Gallery Dos Catalog (pdf)