Sea of Life-Sonic Monument

Team

Name: Jiayun Lu

Nationality: Chinese

Institution / Company: School of Art Institute of Chicago

Name: Ye Feng Maple

Nationality: Chinese

Institution / Company: School of Art Institute of Chicago

– FINALIST of 2020 Monument Competition

A mediated encounter with the boundless ocean. A monument to a transcendent world. The “Sea of Life” is a sonic monument that allows us to empathize with sea creatures that we cannot observe on a daily basis. This monument does not dedicate to any specific figure or ideology but attempts to blur the boundary between the human and aquatic worlds. It helps us immerse into a parallel world that blurs the boundaries of different political seas because water is fluid.

The concept is that of a whale emerging from the water to take a breath of fresh air. The sound-collecting devices collect sound from different seas around the world to transmit the sound frequency to each device on the dome. This broadcasts the sound within the space so people can experience different marine ecologies and geologies from around the northern hemisphere. Each light penetration represents the sounds collected from these locations. The collected soundscapes cause vibrations in the water pool, create geometric waves and patterns on the surface. This spontaneous pattern will project onto the dome. At the end of the ramp, there is a “whale’s eye” with a view of the sunset that emulates the world that they see.

#Co-living #Empathy #Soundscape #Boundaries #Universal