Integration between human and space

Xin Zhang

ACT ONE

In ACT1，I base on the arch of Kelvinbridge to visualise the process of how space is cognised from objective existence to subjective cognition by human and how human base on their cognitions to integrate into the environment.

As Hasher and Zack’s research explored that: “unconscious processing of information related to frequency.” We repeat the same physical movements to interact with some elements which exist in specific places. That is the process of how the environment forms our cognition，and also the way how we participate in the environment. People live in their own world which is created by their practices (physical movements). In other words, we live in different worlds at the same time, even if we are facing the same place.

The exploration will first analysis how people observe and participate with the arch of Kelvinbridge. According to a process of exploring Jupiter in film <2001: A space odyssey>, I find it relates to the process of how human cognise a new environment. I analyse the way how film expresses this process, then connect it with the process of how people experience the arch of Kelvinbridge (when people go through it, the light transmits from dark to bright).

I design three installations with a mystical vision which represent three stages of this process. They are “Discover new environments in old environments”, “Enter the boundary between the new environment and the old environment” and “Integrate into the new environment”.

ACT TWO

In ACT 2, the propose is to create a monument space of salt dome, find out how the audience cognises a specific place by guiding them to have directional physical movements in a semiotic space.

“Tattoo the skin” like an imprint of the environment / specific place on people’s memory and cognition. Leanne Rivlin(1929-) theorized that “one way to examine an individual’s environmental consciousness is to recognize how the physical place is significant, and look at the relationship between people and place.”

The monument needs people to have the same memory and cognition of that place. Semiotics theory abstracts that “what must be the characters of all signs used by … an intelligence capable of learning by experience.” Therefore, on the basis of a unified view that buildings with huge grey dome are salt domes, I focus on how people do some specific physical communications in the salt dome. Those specific physical movements can let people have the same experience in it.

I use directional activities to evoke people’s previous memory and experiences when they interact with the semiotics space. It is one of the processes that people cognise, integrate and uniformly define a place.

Contact: X.Zhang3@student.gsa.ac.uk