The working title of my project would be “Pangu’s Creation of the World“.
What I’m trying to do in this project is to create a modern visualization of the ancient Chiese myth of Pangu creating the world. Pangu (盤古) is a primordial being and creation figure in Chinese mythology who separated heaven and earth and stretched his body to keep them stable, and his body later transformed into geographic features such as mountains and roaring water. I think a world creation story like this is worth delivering to the future because people will always be interested in a poetic narrative of the creation of the world no matter how well scientific discoveries are going on. Specifically, I chose Pangu’s version because instead of being dominant and commanding everything like others in their common storytelling, Pangu sacrifices himself to create the world and uses his own body to build every element of it. For me, this narrative gives an inspiring way to understand the relationship between human beings and the natural world. I want this page to be shared by anyone curious about the process of world creation because this is how these myths are passed down throughout human history.
I would choose 3-4 specific parts of the story to showcase and let the audience be part of the creation. The first part will show how Pangu is born from chaos and splits the messy environment into heaven and earth. For the following parts, since the story is composed of different body parts transforming into different elements of nature (forest, river, etc.), the initial interface would only show the organ I’m demonstrating and set some possible conditions and changes for users to explore. Some possible subjects are 1. 開目成晝，合目成夜…目為日月(Opening eyes to become day, closing eyes to become night…the eyes are the sun and moon); 2. 髮為草木(Hairs transforms into plants and vegetation); 3. 大腸為江海，小腸為淮泗 (large intestine transforms into ocean and seas, small intestine transforms into rivers and streams).
Lastly, this is the link to my presentation slides: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1_cgy-zuTo4Glu-20h4BKK3NCjNirL_MelzOQlMMUuw8/edit#slide=id.p