𝘤𝘭𝘪𝘤𝘬 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘪𝘮𝘢𝘨𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘦𝘹𝘪𝘵
This ongoing performance and installation series began during my residency at outsideininsideout. The first version of the work was an interactive installation. I used 3D scanning to record a burned forest, then imported the charred tree trunks, ground textures, and spatial traces into Unreal Engine. These elements were rebuilt as a virtual environment.
The sound in the work uses white noise to cover the whole space. Specific natural sounds, such as birdsong, wind, insects, and the friction of leaves, are removed. I draw on sound studies and semiotics to understand this process, and describe it as a form of “acoustic de-figuration.” The forest is no longer recognised through its original soundscape. Instead, it is perceived through the sounds that “should have been there” but have been removed. Listening moves away from an immediate response to the site, and shifts toward memory, imagination, and completion. Each viewer has to reconstruct the missing soundscape in their own mind.
In this version, the soundscape becomes a symbolic layer that is slightly displaced from the event and the site. It does not directly restore what once happened in the forest. Instead, it creates a distance between the viewer and the site. White noise covers natural sound, but it also exposes the absence of sound itself. Repeated listening and interpretation slowly change how the place, time, and sense of reality are experienced.
Inside the installation, a faint light keeps flickering. It may be a candle or a small torch. An Arduino light sensor reads its changes in brightness and sends the data into Unreal Engine in real time. This data controls the light in the virtual scene, as well as the intensity, density, or frequency layers of the white noise. These small fluctuations are almost invisible in the physical space, but they affect the generation of the virtual image, the density of the sound, and the rhythm of viewing.
The project later developed into a live audiovisual performance system. It integrates Unreal Engine, Max/MSP, and a custom bodily interface. At this stage, I enter the work as a performer. I use my body as an interface between sound, image, and the real-time system. My body participates in triggering, adjusting, and disturbing the live system.
In later performance versions, the work draws on the Chinese story Painted Skin as a persona and conceptual thread. The story’s structures of skin, surface, disguise, and failed recognition are translated into a bodily narrative within the performance. The work connects the digital reconstruction of space with the cultural narrative of bodily appearance. It asks how perception is shaped through technical systems, memory structures, and cultural symbols.
Half Body Is on the Ground and the Other Half Is Underground has been presented as a performance and installation work across several contexts, including The Year of Sonic Confession / outsideininsideout in Stadt Wehlen and at Slug Gallery in Leipzig, Chant of the Eclipse at Studio.db in Berlin, SNAKES AND LADDERS at Kunsthaus Kule in Berlin, LIGHT FESTIVAL at Dock 11 Digital in Berlin, AN(8)X Festival 2025: Phantom Parade at 90mil in Berlin, Boundary Condition at St James Garlickhythe in London, and Fullecho Alchemists at Metamorphika Studio in London.
