Hongshan Experiment II: Celestial, is a multi-channel interactive video installation. Its creative process aimed to draw a visceral artery between deep time mining of archeology and surfaced evidence on climate change using meteorological data, 3D reconstruction of Hongshan excavation site and planetary database.

Hongshan Experiment focuses on the coupling of scientific data visualization and artistic world-building to experiment with the equilibrium between human and non-human; culture and nature; past and future. Curiosity and concern around archeology, environmental science and astrophysics were raised by audiovisual abstraction, translation and generation. As the second iteration of Hongshan Experiment I: a Possible Outcome, HE II: Celestial takes a space voyage in search of the “outcome” through computer vision.

The animation adopted the rich affinity with carbon allotropes. Radiocarbon gives a time tag to archeological diggings. Carbon footprint helps people understand the impact of personal behaviour on global warming. As an essential building block of living beings on Earth, carbon represents human’s signature in communication with possible extraterrestrial intelligence. Energy transformation was also articulated by a customized shader simulating the ice melting and freezing.

Bio:
Shaoyu Su is a new media artist, cinematographer and curator. His artistic practices and research employ interdisciplinary methodologies from computer graphics, photography, physics and fiction, investigating concepts about deep spacetime-mining: alternative projection from ancient history to the far future. One of his artistic goal is to evoke the subtle grey area in our brain between perception of reality and fantasy through world-building. His works have shown internationally, at venues such as J.Paul Getty Museum, International Symposium on Electronic Art(ISEA), IEEE PacificVis, Today Art Museum Beijing and Vortex Immersion Dome L.A.