World Wide Wave


New Media Installation
Fishing net, LED lights, multichannel audio, servo motors, posenet, instagram data scraping
@ Flux Island Vuotalo
1-22.02.2020

Binaural sound. Please, use headphones.



Binaural sound. Please, use headphones.




World Wide Wave is an interactive installation and immersive experience. Lights and sound are triggered by the audience entering the space. If the visitor is the size of a toddler or tall, together or apart, or just alone, - the experience will evolve regarding the mentioned. The subtle wave-like movement of the nets is derived from the frequency hashtags in IG feeds following the thematic.

The oceans cover three quarters of the Earth’s surface,

”The World Ocean or Global Ocean (colloquially the sea or the ocean) is the interconnected system of Earth's oceanic waters, and comprises the bulk of the hydrosphere, covering 361,132,000 square kilometres or 139,434,000 square miles (70.8%) of Earth's surface, with a total volume of roughly 1,332,000,000 cubic kilometres (320,000,000 cubic miles) ”

Life would not exist without water, - in fact our evolutionary history began in the vast oceanic cradle. Ocean and seas provide nourishment, methods for voyage, and places for leisure by the beaches they manifest. They have been sought to be conquered and to be explored, - yet so much remaining unexplored:

In sublime manner yet simultaneously; they sustain life, they drown life

The understanding of oceans and seas come along our ancestors and is to be continued among us collectively with the scientists in order to fight the devastating consequences by The Era of Anthropocene.

Ocean and seas are superpowers both untamed and mesmerizing. Meanwhile all the mentioned:

They are connecting everyone and everything on this planet. As said, the ocean and seas around point to something beyond its elemental aspect and waves that take their turn; it acts like a network connecting and spanning between physical reality to symbolic surreality. Just like in mythical stories and people´s believes, the universe; whereas the waves and the wind of these great waters, are made of stories that spread around over the seas.

.WWW. gathers around the stories depicting the identity of people, all and each one them keen to maritime lifestyles. It´s physical structures invite the visitor to immerse oneself within the installation. The metaphoric and embodied presence of these salty waters are synchronized with gestures of the audience, those weaving into a form of light and sound portraying the life around and among these giant waters.  

While the wind whispers, - the reflections from the inhabitants of Vuosaari to the individuals along The Arabian Sea are generated to the air in Arabic, English, Hindi, Finnish, Hebrew, Farsi, Finnish…
Together,
as unified,
in harmony,
we as one. -
are weaved into a greater existence of being within the universe;
.WWW. celebrates the diversity of life.
.WWW. observes the identity, connection and networks of life.

.WWW. playfully flirts with 80’s-90’s aesthetics where the colorful beach life is best known from disco and club scenes sided with it, all of those depicted into images in numerous post cards, posters and private and public collections of photographs.

The subtle movement of the fishing net is derived from scraping of Instagram posts, where at the contemporary visual shared experience gathers the memories of the ocean and seas around forming a collective memory of the maritime lifestyles of the time, -today. The repetitive and pattern-like media flow mimics the same arbitrary manners of the waves of the waters the images they are representing.

As the eternal and immortal, the oceans and seas are metaphoric for life, they also contain destruction and death. .WWW. discusses the painful and current reality of our fellow-beings in our Media Lab and Arts community, - stretching into wider issue on hand.

At this given moment, the controversial role what the nature reservation area as the Playa de la Hierbabuena and its forestry hills somewhere at the tip of Europe facing Africa experiences: the daytime it facilitates the outdoor activities for many, meanwhile under the darkest midnight skies it serves as a platform for refugee boats to touch a solid ground in our continent.

.WWW. is an interactive immersive installation that incorporate thoughts by the individuals, who are still living in a constant uncertainty,
(resembling kind of a life at and by the sea that might occur)
- being it a homeless as a citizen in our beloved homeland by the sea or a citizen- of- our country- wanting-to-be.

Thanks to:
Matti Niinimäki, Janne Ojala, Jyri Lahelma, Reishab Kailey, Ameya Chikramane and all the people who contributed to this work.

.WWW. is owned to the people in our hearts that are living in constant ambiguity and feeling of anxiety among us for the shake of complexed issues concerning citizenship and residency. They spend life being apart from their family yet not accepted fully here either.

As said, it was said somewhere in a text from the homeless around Vuosaari: “There is no place as home.”

Special thoughts to Mahnaz Kh, a dear friend from Aalto ARTS circles, living temporarily in Italy, Iranian, waiting to come back.

We miss her too…  






Mark
© Konvolv 2020 Helsinki