BLUESCAPE2  (2016)

 

 

Bluescape2 was brought a step further from Bluescape1, which reflected my view that we are now living is in a merge of the two aesthetics, artificial materiality and the natural world. A merging picture with which we are so familiar, thus they may become undistinguishable. Bluscape1 is a collection of three pieces of connected seascapes painting and collage, is a mixture of oil paint and different colours of plastic bag to convey the intervention of materialism and the natural world. Bluescape2 was developed to operate at the intersection of object installation and projection.

 

This work projects a visual view of environmental situation in our geological time of the Anthropocene, marine pollution in this scene, and the concept of Hyperobjects in conjunction.

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In 2000 the scientists Paul Crutzen and Eugene Stoermer used the concept of the Anthropocene to denote the increasing influence of humans on the planet. It is a movement to change the name of the official current epoch of Holocene to the Anthropocene, due to human activities started to have a significant global impact to transform the planet’s geology and ecosystem. For example, carbon dioxide levels are almost 50% higher than the Holocene - the oceans dissolve carbon dioxide emission from the atmosphere, therefore they become more acidic and less biodiverse.

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Plastic production has increased 500% over the past 30 years. It has become a major issue of concern. The scale of Plastic waste is now transforming the oceans. There are some facts and number, from Adventures in the Anthropocene, that I’ve found it’s unimaginably real. “Every square kilometre of ocean now contains an average of 18,500 pieces of floating plastic, and vast floating islands of garbage coalesce in the currents. In the major ocean gyres, the ratio of plastic to marine life is six to one by weight. In the Anthropocene, the plastic has effectively added hundreds of millions of hard surfaces to the Pacific Ocean (other floating structures, like seaweed, do not naturally occur there.)” Bluescape2 visually coveys the situations, representing a cut-piece of big ocean and It’s plastic waste. Plastic packaging covered with dried crystallize salt interact with water ripple projection, bringing layers of illusiveness. It’s flipping between physical object and its absence as a flip of our awareness to environmental situation. 

 

 

In the Ecological Thought Timothy Morton coined the term of hyperobjects to refer to things that are massively distributed in time and space relative to human as to transcend localization. Through five characteristics of Hyperobjects he describes that they are objects, which have a vitality of its own, but aren’t touchable, like biosphere or climate change. They could be, as well, the very long-lasting human manufactured products, such as Styrofoam, and plastic bags.  Their effects may be experienced even if they cannot be necessarily touched. They adhere to any other object they touch. Their impacts are non-local, and are massively distributes in time and places. They appear to temporally come and go. They are interconnected in an interobjective system, which Morton calls the mesh and are only able to perceive to the imprint of information, or "footprint". For example, global warming is formed by interactions between the Sun, fossil fuels, and carbon dioxide, among other objects. Since we only see them in snapshots, we may forget to be aware that each action is a part of a chain of actions. No part of the planet is unaffected by human influence. We make changes to physical, chemical, and biological process of the planet.

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          “All relations, including those between nonhumans, distort their related objects in the same basic manner as human consciousness and exist on an equal footing with one another.” (Graham Harman)

 

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