EVENT 2 | MNEMOAWARI

    Joteva's Mnemoawari exhibition was truly a touchy one. The concept was to raise people's awareness of the transient nature in terms of big time: past, present and future. I particularly like how she combined scientific technology with the abstract concept and created art piece that was both tangible and possessed artistic values. 

    She translated EEG data of people thinking about water into frequency and then projected onto ice, creating a very "futurism feeling." This reminded me of my past experience working with EEG data. I used to work at UCLA Medical Center, epilepsy monitoring units, dealing with patient's EEG data at different time intervals. Before the dawn, the EEG had more fluctuations. I used to imagine what were people dreaming of at that fluctuation point? How could we possibly present a dream visually and concretely. Joteva's approach definitely solved my puzzle, which was a very organic combination of art concept and tech.  

    A very random thought is that Joteva's work reminded me of Oscar Wilde, who insisted that beauty is transient, fragile and heartbroken in nature. A lot of artworks that are related to nature and environment tend to expose the desperate future of human beings and those are visually destructive and disastrous. However, Joteva fully utilized the beauty of nature and the fading away process to raise awareness, which is more impressive. There was an acoustic show I attended several years ago in Alaska, which presented raw, innocent and powerful Native American music in relation with aurora, sunset, star and water. Then the sound faded away into complete silence which created striking repercussion deeply in the mind.  

     I do appreciate this experience of visiting Joteva's exhibition. The dripping red tears from roses, the rotating installations and the technical efforts behind the scene are definitely fascinating.  

group photo (me: the girl, right two )