THE SHAPE OF TIME
2021
Modern technology has enabled us to use radioactive elements to divide history into periods, piece together the facts and compile a clear chronicle of the earth. It has also made laboratory products and artificial elements the best substitutes for natural mineral resources during industrialization. Therefore, I take the fragments of stratum minerals and their cross-sectional textures as the concretization of earth time. The artificial synthesis and purification technique has brought another possibility, to rebuild and blur the boundary and shape of time, which is, from my view, a creation of “laboratory time” or “unnatural time”.
Research and method
I am exploring multiple means of observing these stratigraphic fragments from a non-human perspective to imagine another form that we are not familiar with. In addition to the shooting of ore specimens and the individual fluorescence records under long-wave and short- wave ultraviolet light, this project also includes 3D scanning technology for the post-processing and re-creation of the data to create an analysis diagram of stacking structure.
Because the size of the subject is so small, each final photograph of the mineral specimen requires a stack of 500 to 800 photographs.
Willemite fragment
Franklin Mine in New Jersey, USA
Willemite fragment
Industrial leak detection orange fluorescent powder
▲Analysis map of the stacked structure
▼Color photography under long-wave ultraviolet of 365nm
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Willemite fragment
Analysis map of the stacked structure
Sodalite fragment
◀︎Color photography under long-wave ultraviolet of 365nm
▶︎Analysis map of the stacked structure
Willemite fragment
Industrial leak detection orange fluorescent powder
▲Color photography under long-wave ultraviolet of 365nm
▼Analysis map of the stacked structure
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LETTER FROM DUST
HD Video
Material: willemite fragment and industrial leak detection orange fluorescent powder
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