Installation: Chang Meng, Ke Peng
Sound: Zhao Jiajing
Glass: Zidi Gong
Performable audiovisual installation, Ambiensonic, Laser, Metal, Glass, Water, Approx 8:00
Exhibition:
Mirror Mirror on the Wall, IKLECTIK Art Lab, London
Whisper of the Unseen: Sonic Alchemy, St John’s on Bethnal Green, London
Oceanosmos is an immersive audio-visual installation inspired by the "oceanic feeling,” as described by writer Romain Rolland. It aims to convey a sense of the infinite and eternal, where the self dissolves, merging with the external world. Freud interpreted this "oceanic feeling" as a primitive self-awareness retained from infancy. Oceanosmos creates an immersive space using spatial sound, laser planes, projections, smoke, and water interaction to explore this "oceanic feeling" – a spiritual experience where the self and the world become one.
Oceanosmos employs an Ambisonic multi-channel spatial sound array, weaving sounds from the ocean and within the human body to create a generative immersive sonic landscape. The work processes sound samples recorded from underwater microphones and portable recorders using chaotic algorithms, resulting in a generative soundscape that hovers between the concrete and the abstract. Through the cues provided by generative sound, Oceanosmos aims to construct a world that exists between the deep sea and the womb, enveloping the audience completely. It encourages the audience to explore the blurred boundary between the external and the self.
The visual installation takes shape in multiple womb-like glass sculptures, constantly modulating the laser projection. Programmed mechanisms create ripples on the water's surface, using refracted lasers to produce different visual patterns. Sound coordinates with programmed projections and lasers to deliver an experimental cross-media narrative. Through immersive nonlinear storytelling, the work guides the audience to explore the relationship between the internal and external, dissolving the boundaries of the self and establishing continuity with the surrounding space.
