Event 2

For my second event, I went to Eli Joteva’s graduate solo show at UCLA Broad Art Center, which was called mnemoawari. Mnemoawari performed a cycle over the course of three days, during which three cryo sculptures released their entropic potential into virtual and material memory: past, present, and future. Each cryo sculpture was made by different materials. The materials used to make these sculptures are flowers, sand, fungi, rocks, and water. Each of them was made layer by layer using a mode.

The “past” was projected onto three separate adjoining walls in the room. Each projected image is different from each other since they were made of different materials. On the screen, three spheres rotated at a constant speed. They represented the initial states of these ice spheres.

Wildflower ice sphere: the "past"

The “present” was depicted at the corner of the room. The ice spheres were melting down at an extremely slow rate due to the room temperature. Some materials started to fall onto the floor. The melting of the ice spheres reminded me of the effects of global warming. It is difficult to visualize the effects of global warming in the real world. Each small ice sphere acted as a tiny-scale earth and showed people how it changed with respect to environment or temperature. In week 2’s material, we also discussed the fourth dimension in art. At that time, it was not easy to image how the fourth dimension is presented in art. While attending the show, I saw the artwork was changing with respect to time. Thus, time could be considered as the fourth dimension in this artwork.

Mushroom and fungi ice sphere: the "present"

The VR goggles provided an entrance into the mushroom ice sphere. A device was used to record the sound of the drips. The landscape in the VR goggles glitched when a sound occurred. The view in the VR goggles only showed a part of the mushroom landscape. I felt like I was an astronaut walking on the surface of the moon. I was unable to see the whole scene of the landscape while in the real world it is just a tiny ice sphere. This also reminds me of the previous topic: art and technologies are connected to each other. They can significantly affect each other.

The “future” was not directly linked to these ice spheres. The explanation of “future” was based on “dream”. According to Eli, the image projected on the wall is a transcription of Eli's roommate's brain wave while sleeping. This is impressive when I saw wave is presented through an image. As an engineering student, I am always dealing with sine waves, cosine waves, radiation, signals, which are unable to be visualized. It is exciting to see that these imaginary scientific concepts are expressed as visual art.

"The future"



This event is amazing and I strongly recommend it. However, I would suggest visitors start with the “present” then the “past” and finally the “future”. This is because I started with the “future” then the ”past” and it took me a while to understand the connection in between.

 Proof of attendance




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