beyond the funky

Beyond the Funky suggests a move towards a more holistic and integrated understanding of the world, celebrating the diversity and complexity that lie beyond the familiar, that is somehow uncanny. It navigates through environments symbolizing various degrees of human influence and natural integration.

The story begins in sterile, human-dominated spaces, here, animals appear as mere resources, their existence tamed by the demands of capitalism—artificial, static, and disconnected. Through photogrammetry, the depicted spaces are drawn from the artist’s daily life, grounding abstract concepts in tangible reality. These scenes critique capitalist entanglements that reduce life to mere resources, highlighting conditions that both bind and threaten biodiversity.

In a kitchen, pet dogs embody the human desire for companionship, their roles strictly defined by domestic settings. The supermarket houses farm chickens, reduced to mere commodities, their lives dictated by the insatiable human appetite for consumption. Within a shopping mall, zoo elephants symbolize exotic entertainment, their majestic presence confined to artificial displays of curiosity. A church shelters farm cows, sanctifying agricultural exploitation. The juxtaposition of a well-designed garden with aquarium fishes reflects the human penchant for aesthetic control, transforming vibrant creatures into ornamental elements. In a cemetery, beloved horses lie buried alongside their owners, freed from the burdens of their lives.

Eventually, the animation immerses us in untamed realms: dense forests and the mysterious depths of the ocean. These vibrant ecosystems teem with diverse life forms the resilience and adaptability found in precarious, encounter-rich environments.

a kitchen with pet dogs

a supermarket with farm chickens

a shopping mall with zoo elephants

a church with farm cows

a cemetery with tamed horses

a garden with goldfishes

Beyond the Funky is part of the seminar ‘Beyond the Screens’ which investigates the potential of large scale urban screens and media facades as visualization zones of ecologies to make climate change tangible, visible and experiential in the public space. How can we shape natural environments and ecologies that often extend human understanding and human interests and recognize the needs and dynamics of beyond-human organisms? How can we give a voice to beyond-human species presented in public spaces on digital screens and media architecture environments? How to create public consciousness at the crossroads of art, science and technologies?

‘Beyond the Screens’ is a joint project of the China Art Academy / Public Art Department, the Nanyang University Singapore / Design Department and the Bauhaus University Weimar co-curated by Public Art Lab.

The task is to develop a 1 min video animation for the large-scale infrastructures in Singapore, Beijing, Shenzhen, Hangzhou, Hamburg, Paris, Amsterdam and London. The works will be selected by an international jury in July 2024 and presented in October 2024 during the worldwide CDSA Festival (City Digital Skin Art Festival) and Connecting Cities infrastructure.

photogrammetry

species // resources

storyline & Ernst Haeckel reference