Gaia Fading. Jana Zufic Ars.Polis A. Butorac 9, HR Porec, Croatia

Transcription

1 Gaia Fading Jana Zufic Ars.Polis A. Butorac 9, HR Porec, Croatia Description of artwork As soon as our ancestors began to walk the Earth, the belief in some universal lifeprinciple arose. Be it the natural world surrounding us or the primordial energy dwelling within our psyche, Gaia is slowly fading into the darkness. Should her vibrant spirit extinguish itself, what will become of us? For the ancient Greeks, Gaia was the primal goddess of the Earth. She was an anthropomorphic figure and, as such, depicted in countless ancient and neoclassical works of figurative art. Mother Nature, otherwise known as Mother Earth, is considered an even older personification of nature, also embodied in feminine form. Jungian psychology sees it as a variation or derivative of the Mother archetype, embedded in the collective subconsciousness. If Mother Nature appears as the caretaker of the environment and the source of nurturing for all living beings, Anima Mundi was thought of as the world soul. This philosophical idea of a universal spirit that pervades all matter as a human spirit pervades the body was initially attributed to Plato, but it actually has its roots in eastern philosophy. Anima Mundi is thus related to the Hindu concept of Atma (commonly translated as the Self ), which ultimately reconciles one s true soul with the universal soul the soul of the world. These ancient religious and philosophical concepts have recently found their way into the realm of science. During the Sixties and Seventies, Dr. James Lovelock formulated an ecological hypothesis and named it after the Earth goddess of the ancient Greeks. Gaia hypothesis was born, or perhaps reborn, and with it the debate about whether or not Earth can be thought of as a single organism, a complex interacting system formed by living and non-living parts. Subsets {B[65], A[29], C[55]}, {C[70], B[32], A[74]} and {A[51], C[72], B[69]} belong to my recent series of computer generated images, entitled Gaia Fading. Although abstract in style, they could by no means be labelled as non-referential. During the creative process, I was driven by a deep desire, an inner necessity in Kandinsky s terms, to capture the very essence of Gaia. The founders of abstractionism rejected the rhetorical transparency of the canvas surface, making it opaque, two-dimensional. Since then, abstract artists have emphasized flatness over depth, formalism rather than illusionism. In my work I try to break up with the sterile tradition of photorealism, usually associated with computer animation and computer art. If I returned to the classical concept of perspective, often referred to as Albertian or Renaissance window, it was only in order to make Gaia appear more real in its unreality. Nevertheless, this illusionism is only apparent, as my artworks depict landscapes that only the inner eye can see. Alberti s window onto the world becomes a window into one s soul (coinciding maybe with the soul of the world). Despite significant advances in the field of non-photorealistic rendering (NPR), most commercially available 3D modelling and animation packages are still bound by the paradigms of realism and figuration, implicit in the way they are advertised and designed to be used. Rendering is only one task, one stage of the creative process. Can it alone make all the difference?

2 Although working with an off-the-shelf software that has moderate NPR capabilities, I did not use any of these for Gaia Fading. Instead, I found my own ways to subvert and play with the above-mentioned paradigms. By using LightWave s tools for purposes other than they were meant for, I sometimes turn software limitations into artistic advantages. Techniques employed Software: NewTek LightWave 3D (version 9.3); Hardware: PC (Pentium D dual-core 64-bit 3.7GHz, RAM DDR2 8GB, GeForce 7900GT); Technical material used in the production: photo paper (Kodak Endura), acrylic glass, composite material (Dibond); Dimensions: 92 x 69 cm (36 x 27 inches); Technical material required for the exhibition: lighting equipment, wall hanging system. By modelling organically shaped objects and morphing them into one another, I was able to animate Gaia s expansions and contractions in relation to Nyx (Gaia s dark counterpart, consisting of several layers of blackness). All base objects and morph targets were defined by subdivision surfaces and made invisible to the virtual camera. I used morph targets to animate particles in a specific way. Each time the Nyx-emitter would make polluted particles explode (blow outwards), the Gaia-emitter would respond by making the unpolluted ones implode (blow inwards), and vice versa. Once the animation was done and the dynamics calculated, I started surfacing particles, or better, assigning voxels (volume elements) to them. During this phase, hundreds of frames were rendered. The process of comparison allowed me to gradually refine the results and achieve that lyrical, deliberately painterly look that distinguishes the Gaia Fading series. Three different prototypes of Gaia were made, denoted by the capital letters A, B and C. For exhibition purposes, nine images (three per prototype) were selected and rendered in high-resolution. Subsequently, they were prepared for digital C-print and face-mounting onto acrylic glass (process known as Diasec). Further developments As opposed to images, the real Gaias behind the surface of the screen (be it a printed picture or an electronic display) are neither flat nor rectangular. Instead, they exist in algorithmic space as bioluminescent constellations of floating entities, fluctuating particles and meticulously arranged light sources. My dream as an artist is to present them on a volumetric display of some kind. Such a display could either show simple, static versions of Gaia (virtual sculptures) or allow for dynamic forms to emerge, with inner and outer volumes constantly shape-shifting and changing over time (virtual structures). An even further step would be to program some self-awareness and responsiveness into them, which would make them virtual organisms. They could react to the presence of the viewer now elevated to being a user and transmit a unique message to the Self. The Gaia Fading project could thus become a powerful metaphor, showing global consequences of human activity on Earth. A central engine would connect Gaia to external sources, retrieve results of scientific measurements and transform numerical inputs (such as levels of air, water and soil pollution) into highly suggestive visual and audio outputs. The higher the pollution levels, the lower Gaia s intensity in terms of light, colour, structural expansion

3 Gaia Fading A[29] Gaia Fading A[74] Gaia Fading A[51]

4 Gaia Fading B[69] Gaia Fading B[32] Gaia Fading B[65]

5 Gaia Fading C[55] Gaia Fading C[70] Gaia Fading C[72]