Snow Yunxue Fu
Rift, 2016,
Rift is a 3D animation utilizing Maya particle. It took interests in the concept of time and its cyclical nature as well as examine how CG technology of the past depict the abstract concept of the galaxy. The particle simulation is generated with the NASA image of our very own Galaxy as a readymade source. Flipping it on its side, the viewer is only exposed to the limited two dimensions (X and Y axis) of this 3D simulated milky way composed of millions of stars particles. The piece confronts the human limitation in grasping the vastness of cosmic time and space but highlights the advantages in the current simulation technology of the visualization of “the Big Data”.
The entity of the galaxy, which from our vantage point is functionally infinite, is processed as images representing what we cannot naturally see, and then synthesized through particle simulation, recontextualized and recreated within the techno sublime for our exploration within a virtual liminal space – a reversal of our experience as observers of the natural sublime.
My work engages in a Kantian quest to capture the experience of the sublime through the limited means of human perception and consciousness. It is a question that transcends cultural boundaries and one that opens onto fundamental inquiries into the nature of human existence: who are we and what is our significance in the material cosmos?
My work began with traditional media and materials but has evolved into an engagement with computer-rendered abstractions. Modeling my animations on the allegorical paintings of Casper David Fredrich, I discovered that his aspiration to explore the nature of physical and metaphysical limits mirrored a fundamental aspect of Chinese Traditional Landscape Painting. Extending out from the pictorial, my installation work engages in a metaphoric relationship with physical perception, by which the sublime is framed, and the viewer is invited to enter a liminal interior within a digitally constructed realm.
Programming Language Used: Python
Pool, 2017
Digitally simulated water goes through various transitions and faces throughout time within this CG pool.
This is the video part of Pool, a floor monitor video installation. For more images on the work: snowyunxuefu.com/section/441527-Pool.html
Snow Yunxue Fu’s artwork approaches the subject of the Sublime using topographical computer rendered animation installations.
She examines and interprets the world around her through digital reality, where she draws a parallel to the realms of the physical, the virtual, the metaphysical, and multi-dimensionality.
Programming Language Used: Python
Project Assistant: Dohee Kim
Gorges, 2018
Gorges is a three-channel 3D Moving Image piece that contemplates contemporary technological society’s relationship with the natural world. While clouds are synonymous with digital culture, rendered rivers and mountains are realistically depicted stationary with highly saturated color directly from the RGB scale. The naturalistic compositions ties visually to landscape paintings (both Chinese and Western), play on perception and desire for a relationship with nature; yet it is synthetic, a liminal realm that we experience but cannot touch. Gorges offers an experience of the digital sublime, which overlaps with our perception of the digital, landscape, our relationship with each, and the fundamental questions that follow, peering into the nature of our existence.
Sound commission: Daniel Brookman
Project Assistant: Jennifer Muraoka
Gorges as a 3-channel installation is premiered at TRANSFER Download project (curated by Kelani Nicole) in the Art House of Thoma Foundation in Santa Fe on June 15th, 2018, and will be showcased there for a whole year.
Programming Language Used: Python
Galaxy Series, 2019
The entity of the galaxy, which from our vantage point is functionally infinite, is processed as images representing what we cannot naturally see, and then synthesized through particle simulation, recontextualized and recreated within the techno sublime for our exploration within a virtual liminal space – a reversal of our experience as observers of the natural sublime.
Programming Language Used: Python
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