The plan for my grad show setup has changed over and over again since Monday partly because I wasn't actually sure what I wanted to express before. In June when we had the presentation about our proposals, what I had in mind was only some extremely, almost executable plans to show off my ability to draw very complicated mind-blowing things. But that couldn't be all to it. What to do with the poetic description of quantum entanglement? I need to find an angle to get into them and make some linkage so I can create something inspiring.
There are some questions that are more critical than ever in this new era of AI and stuff, like what makes us human? It is more than a philosophical question as new archaeology discovery suggests a newly found species Homo Naledi (looked like something in between humans and apes, had small brains and walked on two legs) practised burial rituals and carved what can considerably be art patterns in caves before humans (Homo Sapiens) did. On the other hand, scientists still find the human brain so complex that it cannot be manually fabricated in the near future. So what makes us so special? If it is not virtues that Homo Naledi can also practise, nor logical reasoning which is already outplayed by AI?
In the Netflix documentary A Trip to Infinity, physicist Alan Lightman said when he was young he looked at the night sky and used to think about the billion years of the universe before and after us, he felt so small that life itself, which will end one day, doesn't matter at all. But that changed when he fell in love. So what is love after all, so powerful that changes a person's view of existence? That is yet another unexplainable and everlasting topic. It can compete with quantum entanglement now and see which of them scientists can find an answer for its occurrence first. In fact, some are already trying to study what we used to regard as not "physically" explainable phenomenon using quantum physics: this paper suggests that subjectivity might be a quantum field that changes the information our brain receives, although it is unlikely to be provable any soon due to a lack of measurable tests.
Like I said somewhere before, or if I didn't, I had been a stranger to myself for so long that now being myself again I felt like I'd travelled to the edge of a black hole and then returned to find everything different (a way of time travel suggested by Stephen Hopkins). It was like yesterday I was 15 and today I am 25. Or it's like receiving a message on a planet 10 light years away from Earth so my 15-year-old self would tell me to talk and not leave such regret like this but when I received the signal message it was already 10 years later it felt like less than a second has passed. It has been so short and so long at the same time that when you travel at the speed of light everything is in the present and the past and future do not exist but for the others at the normal speed, you would look like a ghost. It has been this paradoxical to me. Not to mention the superposition I'm in now—am I still living in the past or is it that long-lasting it is in the present? Rationally speaking it is quite impossible but emotionally speaking it lingers—emotions can escape time.
So the whole thing looks more like this now:
Although I can't actually make another wall outside like the above I will try to achieve a similar effect.
Also, this is not enough. I need something in the middle to guide the audience to turn around and find the other view before they leave.
For the outdoor sculpture, I decided to make it as AR because after seeking out some materials and holding them in my hands, I just thought it would be more sensible to focus on what I am best at and finish the indoor drawing.
I even tried to 3D-print a small model but it failed as well.
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