Artificial Nature: Conservation of Shadows

Graham Wakefield (with Haru Ji)
Canada Research Chair, Assistant Professor, Computational Arts/Visual Art & Art History 
with special thanks to Mark-David Hosale (Associate Professor, Computational Arts)

Artificial Nature: Conservation of Shadows is a site specific work for a gallery in the Seoul Innovation Center that was previously occupied by the Korea Center for Disease Control and Prevention for medicinal storage and animal experimentation. For this historically charged space we imagined unknown new beings growing fond of the wet texture of old wood, the fragrance of sunshine smeared between cracks, and the quietness of murmuring and whispering. To let them live, we extended senses to mix realities surrounded by softly ringing bells and the crunch of salt underfoot as their shadows pass by; and an alternate perspective through head-mounted display in which we become the shadows around which new beings play.