Space weather datasets including solar cycles, proton flux and sunspots were abstractly interpreted and recreated in Hong Kong using programmed LED lighting and long exposure photography.
Seemingly far away, space weather has a real influence on our planet. The artwork references the cultural heritage of neon signature. By illuminating rare, darkened Hong Kong corners with an unfamiliar aurora-like glow representing solar activity, it also raises awareness of the hidden workings of the universe and our place in it.
The interactive animation aims to visualize the effect of typhoon Mangkhut by using wind speed and air pressure datasets from the typhoon. As viewers approach, the artwork responds by becoming louder acoustically, and more intense visually.
Weather report during typhoon Mangkhut is also used as the audio source in this work. The audio speed changes according to the audience’s distance with the installation to form a simulated wind sound.
Now you can see the wind is coming.
An enclosure uses fog and light displays to represent rising sea levels. This surreal and dreamlike effect invites the visitors to experience a visible sensation while seeing the projected datasets in relation to rising sea levels.
Under the influence of climate change, Hong Kong will be one of the first victims of rising sea levels. Since theatrical fog has the similar appearance and fluidity as water, it is widely used to mimic flowing water in plays. The dreamlike quality of the fog implies a future threat that we cannot see but only imagine.
Silhouettes of the never-melting, old sea ice of the Arctic from the past and upcoming 20 years frozen into an ice sphere that melts through time. As the floating chunk of ice shrinks, the outer layers loose and the ice is not filling the whole outline of the onetime shape of the Arctic. A remaining handful of ice, that holds together the past and predicted forms, represents what we have now and what we have to save.
The Arctic is dominated by sea ice, unlike the Antarctic which is essentially a huge land-based ice sheet. Warming trend has accelerated over the past 15 years in the Arctic, the area of the permanent sea ice is shrinking year by year exponentially, at around 13% a decade since 1979, according to Nasa. Scientists expect the exposure of more open water to sunlight could enhance warming in the region and cause the reflection of solar radiation back into space less effective and could soon contribute to a substantial rise in sea levels worldwide. Release of methane and carbon dioxide stored in permafrost could also cause abrupt and severe global warming, as they are potent greenhouse gases. Researchers are grappling with how these changes in the Arctic affect global climate.
Candles measured to match the number of those killed in each typhoons across Hong Kong’s history since 1960 were suspended over a grid and melted in a performance.
After a typhoon in Hong Kong, public attention often focuses on the financial loss and personal inconvenience while the fact that the storms tragically end lives is quickly forgotten. Those killed by typhoons are memorialized in this work by extinguished flames, and the wax becoming a silent measurement of death toll data placed into a grid.
Using a custom-made programmed LED lighting stick in remote Hong Kong natural sites, long exposure photography captures the resulting light paintings of two datasets of statistical predictions of intensifying climate change.
The sites chosen are remote constructed barriers built to protect the city and natural landscapes. Both of them display the trace of the destructive power of last year’s typhoon. Yet the alarming data and these images call attention to our possibly false sense of security in Hong Kong.
Special thanks to: Cherley Lee, Martin Yeung, Kyra Lai, Cyrus Leung, Scarlett Ty, Daniyar Agaltsov, Catherine Deng, Jason Ip, Lars Hurrelbrink.
From 0 To The Point is a sound installation made with aluminium alloy, wood, sound device, motors, and a microcontroller. The work is inspired by the microburst phenomenon.
A microburst is an intense small-scale downdraft produced by a thunderstorm. In this artwork, the natural phenomenon is reformed into moving sound devices that move around the space from point to point in circles. By refining the wind flow, the installation creates an imaginary sensation that traverses our auditory senses into a tactile impression, crossing different human senses. This unique wind movement could never exist in the space but appears when you are standing around the installation.
A map of the world is punctured with plastic straws whose height is cut to match microplastic concentrations in the world’s oceans and lakes. Behind the map, a video showing pure, sunlit water is concealed and can only be seen through the holes of the straws.
Our pure water supplies are now contaminated with microplastics. The mixed media installation is stacked – the video represents the original purity of our water, the straws refer to our added plastic trash, and the map shows how we have divided up this resource. The fact that the video can only be seen through the plastics straws illustrates how water will always be contaminated with invisible microplastics. The used straws were collected from Hong Kong food courts and the map is selected from 1960s’ archives alluding to the period in our history when plastic became dominant.
Special thanks to Adventure Scientists and Nagatomi Creation Co. for supporting this project.
Scanning and collecting my own brainwaves over an evening of restless sleep due to light pollution, the data is laser etched onto plexiglass sheets that obstruct flashing images of LED signage from lit areas like Mong Kok reduced to their simplest, black-and-white forms.
Having spent my life in a dense urban environment, Hong Kong’s constant bright flashing lights outside my window have caused incessant difficulty for me to fall asleep. Light pollution causes both environmental and physiological damage, and my need for darkness is shared by all of us.
Wind speed datasets from super typhoon Mangkhut are animated and projection-mapped on an installation made of a fallen tree.
In total, more than 55 000 trees felled on September 16, 2018, when Mangkhut rocked Hong Kong. A victim tree’s trunk is used as a screen for animations, telling the story of the raging storm, the damage done to the local ecosystem and reminding us about the destructive power of nature.
Inspired by Haraway’s “A Cyborg Manifesto”, I recycled a wood stump in the ruins after Typhoon Mangkhut, and used series of LEDs and sensors to make this Cyberstump. As a “living” sculpture, it responses to audience’s motion and breath instantaneously.
Scientists believe that we have entered the Anthropocene, our moment in history when human activities are directly influencing the environment. The lighting parts of the stump are tree rings showing the history of a tree. By placing the sensor-based data of our breath into the history of the tree, this artwork aims to remind the audience of our current moment in the era of climate change and the cycles of our planet, symbolizing the relationship between human activity and the natural environment.
In the moments right before lightning strikes the ground, it creates a unique branching pattern in the sky known as the Lichtenberg figure. In this data visualization artwork, electrical currents were triggered through selected points on wood to recreate Lichtenberg figures matched to the lightning strike contacts in Hong Kong during the most intense thunderstorm on 22 August 2018.
When seen from a distance, lightning has always seemed so distant and mesmerizing. I never felt a sense of danger from it, just captivated by the faint glow and arcs through the sky. On 2 July, 2018, I lost a close friend who was struck by lightning while hiking. His passing was devastating for me and everyone around him and this artwork shows the complexity of lightning, both beautiful and dangerous, leaving its scarred trace in our lives.
The visitor’s image in a mirror is divided by the variation of water levels over the past century, referring to the relationship between us and the rising sea level. The graph is painted on Chinese Xuan paper with watercolors, while the water used to make the paint was collected from Hong Kong’s polluted air.
Adopting water from our region’s atmosphere which relates to a high level of greenhouse gasses due to our lifestyle, the mirror forces us to face the fact that we are causing the problem and we should seek solutions to fix it. In a LED saturated city, the traditional woven paper reminds us of a time when our media was simpler and more natural.
A simple music box gently plays a familiar lullaby. Yet it is interfered by a program that uses the wind datasets from Typhoon Mangkhut. This algorithm finally destroys the melody.
The music box plays a Brahms classic, representing both home and safety. But it is broken apart into pieces according to the increasingly violent winds. As the melody is dramatically affected by the storm data, sound becomes an alternative way to present natural force and danger.
Working together with the School of Energy and Environment under the Celestial Mechanics research project, mtr.veins aims to provide a new way of looking at public transportation data, to gain insights valuable for urban planning and design. Based on large scale surveys and architectural data, the crowdedness of the Hong Kong MTR stations at certain times of the day are visualized as a biological system, whereas clots represent overflooding at each station.
Employing a visual metaphor to assist urban planners to gain insight into a set of raw numbers was a unique challenge, and is realized now through 3d animation, depicting the Hong Kong MTR system's average movements for a 24 hour period.
Data from School of Energy and Environment, Dr. Shaurhat Chopra, Xu Zizhen, Rohit Shyla
Supported by a grant from the Research Grants Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China. Project No.11601915 Design Strategies for Visualizing Multiple Spatiotemporal Datasets.
Using recycled wood from trees after super Typhoon Mangkhut, the lighted monument mimics the shape of iconic Typhoon 10 signal. It combines etched data from Typhoon Mangkhut and scene reproductions using acrylic patterns.
The most critical tenth warning signal has not changed its shape since 1917. It symbolizes our relationship with typhoons—always with us, despite our attitudes and abilities changing over the century. By illuminating the wooden cross shape, the work implies the mourning of those lost and the sense of charity and support shared by helping each other during the disaster. The sculpture aims to trigger people’s thinking about our relationship with typhoon via the abstract acrylic patterns as well as the figurative etched data.
Custom fabricated metal molds were shaped based on the Hong Kong map. In a series of filmed
live performances, fresh raw eggs were placed in the molds and warmed to peak recorded ground temperatures of each site.
Urban areas are usually warmer than their rural surroundings, a phenomenon called the
“heat island effect”.The record-breaking temperatures registered in Hong Kong in recent
years is an irritant that causes many to seek cooler areas during the summer. However,
the intense heat in summer is an indicator of climate change and this playful artwork is
to warn people that we are in a serious situation of global warming.
Special thanks to REN Jiajia who helped with the data.
Using the unique “vertigo effect” cinematography technique, Hong Kong’s worst and best air quality conditions were visualized by depth perception. The data of the ozone concentration levels from 1990 to 2017 was mapped to the focal depth of the zoom lens used for the effect. The subtle movements in the shot represent the relationship between people and the environment.
Our city’s ozone concentration levels are rising, resulting in photochemical smog. It not only turns Hong Kong’s iconic views and clear blue skies into rare scenery, but also causes heart and lung conditions such as emphysema, bronchitis and asthma. Many locals suffered such adverse health effects associated with Hong Kong’s air quality, yet most of us are indifferent to the problem.
Special Thanks to Riya Sehgal, Kwok Chi Chiu, Wong Wen Tao.