Lifecycles
2nd International Arts & Science Exhibition
Beijing, China. 2007

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Lifecycles explores the cyclical relationship between physical and digital worlds. Natural elements of water and wind exist as both real and virtual elements. In this work, a wind-water cycle is created in which half the cycle takes place in the real world, and the other half in the digital world. While the physical world maintains its complexity, the digital world is a simulacra invented by man as a reflection of our understanding. As human beings, we exist now in this dual-space, part of which is our relationship to the real world, and the other which is our impression, interpretation, and attempted mimicry of the real in the virtual.

Wind is generated from a fan to the left, which blows across a living plant. Seeds from the plant enter the virtual world and drift through the sky. As they move, they transform into clouds which rain onto a mountain to the right. The rain moves down the mountain and enters a river at bottom center. From this resevoir of water, a woman gathers water and pours it back onto the plant at the left.