Interactive Audiovisual Performance "Gravitational Waves"

Exposé

During my Master study in UdK Berlin I started my research topic “the combination of illustration and experimental media”, and carried this topic on to my Meister study for one year. As my graduation project I presented this interactive audiovisual animation performance together with a new media and sound artist Xiaolu Yu, who is also a student in UdK Berlin. The novelty of this work is that it’s not a traditional animation, which describes a series of actions performed in common sense, but rather an animation, in which the movements are not predefined, but are triggered by the loudness of live audio. Specifically, normal animations are projected on to the walls, on which light sensors are set to perceive the color and brightness, and generate sounds with different pitches, which in turn affect the movements of objects and their colors. Sometimes it creates interesting and surprising motions that are unreal but very artistic.

As for the content, this work is named “Gravitational Waves”. Gravitation, the most important phenomenon in the universe, is the cause why particles relate with each other, whereas as a symbol of energy, gravitation is connected to thermodynamic and entropy. Thermodynamics tells us that energy transports via arrow of time, which means time flows forwards and useful energy turns useless or chaos. Such energy is entropy. All movements increase entropy, which are among invisible particles and nature forces, so called waves. It is not only in physics domain but also related to philosophy, energy conversation and coherence. I pay close attention to cosmophysics and philosophy in my free time. I have always wanted to express the physics concept, phenomenon, and coherence among everything in the universe, in a relaxed but mysterious way. The unrealness of the mutual effect caused by experimental electric sound and audio is just the perfection description of the transformation and disappearance of the forces in the universe. As for the rhythms, the animation switches between the perspective of god and civilian, the feeling of realness and unrealness, and the result of disorder and coherence.

VJ: Ruohan Wang
DJ:Xiaolu Yu

Concept: Ruohan Wang
Illustration and Graphic: Ruohan Wang
Animation: Ruohan Wang
Clip: Xiaolu Yu
Sound: Xiaolu Yu