2. Description

 This project examines the ecology of SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus during COVID19 pandemic as a lens through which to reconsider how the micro-ecological environments have co-evolved with human history, and to question where humanity reside within this evolutionary trajectory. From the point of co-evolution, the project unfolds as both sound/ multi-media installation and an accompanying research book.

 The work adopting an interdisciplinary approach, integrates scientific evidence and humanistic thoughts according to the preliminary research – molecular biology and cultural history of disease. Research into related disciplines was conducted through consultation with a biology professor, and this project inspects that the evolutionary and mutational aspects of SARS-CoV-2 which are articulated through primal dynamics of ‘infiltration and defense’ are interwoven with historical chains of disease in the notion of ‘surplus of desire’ (formed by this artist), manifested through aesthetic application and structural design of sound / kinetic digital media installation employing physical dynamics of contraction and expansion.  

 The process is that after analyzing the nucleotide sequences of viral mutation samples, the data were processed through probabilistic models of 1st and 2nd Markov Chain, producing computational messages to control the sound and kinetic digital media. The sound component focuses on the point of emergence and progression of co-evolution, articulating the reciprocal influences between vertically and horizontally evolving entities through patterns of infiltration and defense, rendered as tensions between idealized and distorted waveforms. Meanwhile, the kinetic media installation employs pump motors to enact volumetric dynamics of contraction and expansion, positing a critical threshold of greed as an absolute capacity of air. Through this mechanism, the work constructs an imaginative topology that reflects on the kind of “breathing” that characterizes contemporary human existence.