ENERGY AXIS
2023, commission, room-sized audio-visual immersive installation
kinetic fire sculpture, hologram, tripling projection, generative art
The hologram is made from a real-life vertical vortex of fire generated through a spinning kinetic sculpture. The pillar of fire, generated restlessly and held together by the sculpture's constant motion, embodies a resilient and inexhaustible energy backbone within a person. The inner source of spirit and light, and the underlying soul-stirring desire and drive, take on the shape of an axis on fire.
The installation serves as a personal eternal flame.
To avoid distorting the sound, the video needs to be played through a speaker.
The hologram projection triples, with 2 more of the same fire formation on the opposite walls. Superimposed with the projections are human-height mirrors, appearing as black voids ablaze. Voids are inherently infinite. As the viewer approaches 1 of the mirror voids, they see their own reflection on fire. The viewer is the axis now. When the fire formation is circular, the viewer sees their face in a halo of a swirl of flames.
The audio is dynamically responsive to the fire pillar’s changing light intensity and motion. The multilayered sound is generated from layers of fast-changing flame petals. The two-channel audio is played through a quadraphonic speaker system, immersing the room. The generative sound art was coded in Python and composed in Supercollider by Arthur Start.