50 Feet Above the GroundOct-Dec 2024
Sound-sensitive interactive installation
Materials: 4K projectors (3), HDMI cables (3), HyperSound H3000/AMP directional speakers (2), 3D printed holders (2), acrylic boards with paper backing (2), fishing wires, bean bags (2)
Production Tools: DJI Mavic 3 Pro, shotgun mic, contact mic, StageBug SB-4, TouchDesigner, Madmapper, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Audition, Adobe Premiere Pro, Audacity, Python
35 minutes 10 seconds
50 Feet Above the Ground originates from a simple curiosity: to remap a disappeared home situated roughly 50 feet above the ground.
It is an exploration of the forms of home, the activation of somatic memories, the tug-of-war between retrospection and escape, and the deaths and burials of both space and the observing subject.
In creating the videos, walking becomes a drawing tool, a narrative device, a bridge between space and time, and a medium of (dis)communication.
The dual-channel stereo sound embodies a dichotomy: the present, constantly exploring body, and the restrained, constantly rationalizing voice narration.
In a trance-like state, I used my body to slowly weave together my childhood apartment, guided by hints of past daily routines. In this process, I am nowhere, yet I am at home. I am fully exposed to public surveillance, yet I am free from sharing any information I refuse to. I lost my home, and my home can no longer be taken away. My body is my home — I can be at home without feeling trapped.
At the end of the video, I walk through furniture, moving in and out of windows. The apartment space does not confine me. My movement now gravitates towards the perceived reality of the empty grassland beneath me — the disappeared apartment is an imagination. Yet, as I walk through walls, unable to physically touch anything, I become the ghost of the apartment — a place that once existed in a palpable, concrete form.
Thus, the death of a place can be reinterpreted as the death of the observing subject, making the piece a ritual of burial. My body is the tomb of my home. I no longer wish to be buried in the land of my home, for it sleeps soundly within my flesh. In fact, my home does not belong to any land — for it is floating 50 feet above the ground.