This video shows one of the largest islands in the disputed parts of the Asian Sea. This island is part of an archipelago of 14 small islands that are supposed to be military bases without any inhabitants. This is an archive image captured on June 2, 2016. That was the time when this island was in the midst of artificial expansion. Now, the artificial transformation of this island is the most astonishing in size and shape among the other islands in this archipelago. In this video, this representative island is suspended and isolated in a virtual space. This archival image is transformed into 3D and recomposed by particles that are animated until they vanish into smoke in space. An original soundtrack composed by Jingyu Cao emphasizes the sensation of nothingness.
Drawing inspiration from Jean-Paul Sartre's existentialism and the concepts of nothingness and anxiety, this piece reconsiders our human existence on the cosmic scale. In a world where the production of realities is intensifying due to new digital media, how should an individual position themselves? Where does the image produced by the media lead to an actual territorial transformation?
