VISUALS
The pandemic lockdowns in 2020 were undoubtedly an unusual experience. Many of us, including myself, spent a long time feeling lonely and isolated as if no living creatures are accompanying us. The pandemic also made me rethink the idea of lifespan and life in general. In the middle of the lockdown, I started to observe my surroundings. I found out that we've had many living companions live inside the same confined space with us during this challenging time. Things like the over-bought groceries in the fridge caught my attention. They were fresh and lively when they entered the house, then they were forgotten in the refrigerator. They went through the decay process when we didn't even get to eat them; some even had new life forms growing on them --- the mold. I decided to document this poetic process, and I wanted to celebrate these forgotten companions who had been through this challenging time by eternalizing them.
The new textures on the decayed vegetables inspired me; they share a similarity to the geo-forms. I started to reimagining them into geology forms using 3D technology. We as humans are only able to identify the subtle changes with a similar or shorter life span than us. We consider the lifeforms with much shorter lifespans to be ephemeral. In contrast, geology is a subject where we explore the subtle changes of a planet whose lifespan is beyond our imagination. It is so long that it seems like an eternity. I processed the documented images in Grasshopper and used the images as bump maps; the program generated the images into topographies. Then the 3D models are retouched in Blender. The images below are showing the before and after of this process. I have also created a planet using the 3D element’s data, watch the video here.
The geo-forms generated from the vegetables were transformed into continents. They were put together onto the same planet and eternalized.