Depicting an upcycled plastic tree sculpture amidst a natural forest, The Little Things are Giant is a photographic series that makes the invisible visible.
Growing up in the suburbs of Maryland, much of my entertainment revolved around the woods. Elementary school days were spent in the treehouse, or hiding behind a tree during a game of hide-and-seek. As I grew older, I moved past the forestry of my own neighborhood and started hiking in other, slightly more distant forests. This personal connection to trees, along with the goal of raising awareness of terrestrial plastic pollution, are the leading sources of inspiration for The Little Things are Giant, a photographic series.
According to the United Nations Environment Programme, microplastic pollution is estimated to be 4 to 23 times higher in soil than it is in oceans. Yet, much of the media attention surrounding plastic pollution features imagery of disturbed marine life, with sea turtles and seagulls choking on the plastic can rings stuck around their necks. On the other hand, the infiltration of microplastics is largely invisible to the eye. These tiny pieces of plastic are carried through waterways, eventually making their way into our oceans and especially our soil. The Little Things are Giant is a photographic series that aims to make the invisible visible through its depiction of an upcycled plastic tree sculpture amidst a natural forest.
Following the upcycling movement, the sculpture makes use of heating techniques to transform plastic waste material. The tree is crafted from a wood and wire underframe and shaped by heating and molding collected single-use plastic bags. By transforming objects that were once considered trash into sculpting material, this sculpture shows the value of upcycling.
By focusing on trees as a subject, The Little Things are Giant draws attention to an environmental issue that is relevant to all of our lives, and one that is imperative to find solutions for.
Tags:#environmentalart#plasticpollution#upcycling
Maya Wang | 家: An Art Book on Intergenerational Trauma
“家” is a multimedia art book that chronicles my experience with intergenerational trauma within my Chinese American family.
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My book exposes and chronicles intergenerational trauma within my Chinese American family. Three generations of my family’s history are recounted through interviews, poetry, photos, and paintings. Topics such as parent/child relationships, domestic abuse, mourning, and diaspora are addressed. I created this book not only to document and spark discussion about difficult and painful familial relationships, but also to reconcile my own experiences in an act of catharsis. The narrative progresses and regresses in a nonlinear way to reflect the true process of healing.
I invite viewers to interact with my work and think about their own experiences in tandem. Discussing family trauma is stigmatized, and when left unresolved, trauma manifests in dysfunction that is inherited by the next generation. The conception of this project stemmed from a desire to reconcile my own experiences, but it has developed into the creation of a metaphorical space where people can discuss and reflect on the shared issues and experiences of a minority identity. Art that comes from an honest and personal place has the ability to resonate with people and be a medium for self-reflection – despite the deeply varied human experience – because of universal themes.
Tags:#Book#Art#Storytelling
Ren Tao | THE CAGE: an installation
“Across the Great Wall, we can reach every corner in the world “… or not?
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THE CAGE is an artistic installation made for reflections on China’s world-strictest Internet censorship system. A wooden bird cage is placed in front of a white wall, and stands on a rotating platform. Three components make up the cage inner: The bottom stands images of China’s ten greatest infrastructure projects from 200-2018, depicting the flourishing industrial development; Images of the Great Wall are placed at the top, which resembles the “Great Firewall”. Between two parts, several twitter-logo like birds images hang in the air. They symbolize the Chinese netizens groups restricted in the cage. All elements are printed and cut on Chinese traditional parchment. Two LED lamps, which lighten up the whole project, are fixed in the middle hollow space. The installation is around 45cm tall, 20cm² wide. All elements are designed in Photoshop, printed and cut by hand. Hardwares are available online.
Alongside the cage is a piece of paper attached on the wall, printing “Across the Great Wall, we can reach any corner of the world” with its Chinese translation. This is the first email China officially sent to the world in 1987.
This project expresses such an idea: When voices of Chinese netizens cannot be heard, they lose individual personalities on International social platforms, and eventually become a vague concept of mass collection (based on imaginary and limited information). In this way, the artist regards the system as a bird cage, through which communication between “human and human” can never happen. The artist asks the audience one question: The country is developing by leaps and bounds, however with the “Great FIrewall” above the land, where is China going？
Tags:#China#internetcensorship#socialconcerns
Yufeng Zhao | One Free Click 一键免费祝你创业: Generate video for platform monetization
To make recycling appropriated content on Kuaishou easier for grassroots digital creative entrepreneurs, a website connected to an auto-editing service and a video database is developed to help them survive on the video platform.
One Free Click is an interactive website that showcases trending yet replicable Kuaishou videos within selected hashtags and generates auto-edited derivative videos, ready to upload with a single click. This project is inspired by the structural practice of video reproduction on Kuaishou, the leading short video platform in China.
Kuaishou is known for the unabashed earthiness of its contents and its encouragement for mass entrepreneurship by means of monetization of digital content. On Kuaishou, in order to speed up the production and bring down the cost, there are a large group of videos that are reproductions of existing ones. Many reproduce the same plots, scenes or lines, and some are just collages or re-edits of existing videos. However, thanks to Kuaishou’s delicately curated recommendation system, the lack of content originality does not affect the publicity of the videos in attracting new audiences to the publishing accounts. Such workflows are often passed down from established Kuaishou influencers to newcomers through self-run mentorship programs.
One Free Click is a piece of web art as well as a product designed for newcomers to the Kuaishou business. The entry page presents a collection of videos under a few popular tags among the reproduction practice. Under each tag, a condensed view of the existing corpus is shown in order to quickly familiarize the user with its creative context. While unveiling the phenomenon, it also responds with an automated editing workflow for simple video reproduction, free of charge to average Kuaishou users struggling with mechanical labor and hassles in their mobile editing software. With a click of a button, it generates a random video from a database of existing ones for immediate downloading and publishing. It aims to provoke thoughts in China’s landscape of fast-entertainment, mass entrepreneurship, and the ecosystem for content creators.
Tags:#Automation#ContentPlatform#DigitalEntrepreneur
Jessica Chon | A Reflection on Lookism: A face clinic installation
A Reflection on Lookism is an interactive face reading/plastic surgery consultation inspired by gwansang and plastic surgery in South Korea.
In this project, users can visit a simulated plastic surgery clinic website to receive a virtual consultation on how they can improve their fortune. After users select an option of what aspect of fortune they would like to improve, I advise them on how they can manipulate their facial features to improve the respective fortune, based on principles of gwansang. I use real-time face-recognition software to recognize the user’s facial features. Once they manipulate their face accordingly, a before and after image of their face is automatically taken from their webcam.
The consultation itself is held virtually in a tent meant to replicate the tents of many fortune telling stalls in Korea. I modified several elements of the tent to create a more “high-end” feel that a plastic surgery clinic would have. The mix of these two atmospheres is meant to evoke the separate feelings of mystery, intimidation, and confusion one feels when they enter a fortune telling stall or medical clinic.
This project was based on the themes of gwansang, lookism, and plastic surgery in South Korea. Gwansang is the Korean practice of face fortune telling, while lookism is appearance-based discrimination. Despite being separate topics, the three phenomena are indirectly interconnected. Lookism is especially prevalent in Korea’s corporate sphere, and people often feel pressured to fit into specific beauty standards to secure ideal jobs. As a result, many people resort to plastic surgery to fulfill these standards. Simultaneously, Korean face fortune tellers are finding their jobs increasingly difficult because of the growing number of people altering their faces. These fortune tellers feel that they cannot give authentic readings, since people’s natural faces have been changed.
A Reflection on Lookism’s purpose is not only to educate others on gwansang and plastic surgery in South Korea, but also to have people reflect on how appearances have influenced our lives and the overall implications lookism has had on society.
Tags:#Lookism#Virtualinstallation#Koreanculture