THE EPHEMER AL JOURNE Y ‘ how does one dying fulfilled us with liveliness?’ Pitchakor n Pok sir ik ul (Ploy)
How does one dying fulfilled us with liveliness? ‘The ephemeral journey’ reimagines death by transforming the action of neglecting to embracing. The project seeks to bring value back to death by exhibiting the inbetween moments of life and death of ephemeral beings in Pak Khlong Talat market, flowers.
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:Pak Khlong Talat, Flower Market
THE EPHEMER AL JOURNE Y Whenever someone mentions Pak khlong talat, the things that come to mind are the ‘liveliness and freshness’ of the sea of flowers. However, instead of focusing on the beautiful side of this place, the thing that caught my attention is the contrast between its ’beautiful nature and its physical state’ Flowers are initially meant to be part of nature. Thus, the fact that they are cutted from their roots oppose me with a question, whether they are alive or not? and How does one dying fulfill us with liveliness?
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As a way to find the answer, I looked at the things that we embrace about death. This was done through the process of analysing existing objects in the site. Before I compile my collections, I look into the journey of flowers inside the market. The colour dots show where different actions occur.
This includes delivering from the truck to the trolley, from the shops to the cooler or the freezer and the process of decomposing the petals and recomposing it into a new creation. Following this I selected a few objects related to the different stages in the life cycle of flowers. The object that I thought has the most potential to continue with is one of Thailand’s traditional handicrafts, ‘Puang Malai’.
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I broke my analysis into two main areas. The first area I look at is about the hours and effort. We spent long hours making these works of flowers even though we knew they would perish in a day or two. Following this I look at the making process of the garland and its physical properties. The flower garland consists of 3 main parts, the body, the neck and the tail. I focus on the structure of the body part which is usually rounded and has one single curve. However there are other types of networking found, such as the twisted structure, the braided structure and the chain structure. I also look into significance patterns of the garland, which are mostly diamond-like patterns. Since both the process of building up the structure and making pattern uses the process of threading, I look into the threading technique of the garland.The side of the flowers would be thread through a needle, arrayed clockwise and pull down onto a cotton string.
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pattern A pattern B
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THE ANGLES
THE DISTANCES
Following this I created an experiment aiming to understand the arrangement of the structures. I use these solid wooden pieces to represent the flowers. I found that there are different variables which introduce shiftiness to the structure – the angles that each module is arrayed or the distance in between the modules which creates different levels of connectivity and clarity to the pattern.
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3 THE INTEGRATIONS
I also experimented with the distances where I introduce a second module with a thinner body which allows the pieces to be tightly packed together. I made two different patterns from both types and the results for the clarity of the patterns are completely different. Next, I explore into the structure part, where I work with different rotational degrees on different types of structure.
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After exploring with the models I extract the different variables as ‘inputs of shiftness’. I found shiftness and distortion is interesting as it corresponds with the idea of the decay of the flower itself. Which is the second area of my analysis, the decay.
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As humans we tend to appreciate things that are temporary. Therefore I look at the decay of the flowers that I bought to observe which transforms in shapes, texture and colours. It also affects the arrangement of the garland, creating distortion and gaps in between. But rather than looking only at the geometry, I look at how it dried inside as well. As part of this, I look at the water system in plant. Water moves from the roots up to the stem through the small gaps in between molecules.
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water experiment 1
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water experiment 2
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Base on the water system I studied, I conducted an experiment to observe the action of water moving up through different types of paths.
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I extend it further by experimenting with this arrayed structure. When the ribbon is absorbed with water they flopped down, and the structure becomes distorted.
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observe the moment!
I revisit my work. and categorize the human actions in the market into 3 sections. First, how we push nature out of its natural limits – cutting it from where it should be or turning it into a new creations. Second, how we temporally embrace its moment of beauty. And the third stage is neglecting its afterlife. However, the end of life is not death, but it’s about forgetting. Therefore my artifact seeks to bring value back to death by exhibiting the in between moments of life and death.
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I want to transform the action of neglecting to embracing by adopting a system that playing around with the theme of shiftiness, distortion and change. Thus, throughout the day the artifact changes to resemble the different stages of life.
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As the artefact rotates the patterns applied become distorted just like how the garland becomes distorted as it decays. This shift functions as a visible moral showcasing about death and life to the community which allows us to embrace its afterlife in different ways.
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In terms of context, I want to give a sense of bringing it back to the system of nature. Therefore the artifact is located by the river bank. It operates by borrowing the water underneath which allows the artifact to transform naturally. The system that I use is the whirlpool turbine, which allows water to flow in and produce a rotating motion which will operate the gears.
mechanics
I experimented on the mechanics which can make the modules shift one by one as it rotates I tested with both the staright and curved path. When the first module moves it snaps the next one repetitively. However, as the module along the curved path rotates, the whole stem rotates as well. This added further to the structure of my design.
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The structure of the artifact established is mainly broken into 3 categories which represents different levels of shiftness. The first ones are the individual stems with one stem through the network. The second one is this twisted structure containing two stems.The third one is the braided structure consisting of 3 stems in the network.
As the number of stems increases the complexity of the structure increases as well. I Want the levels of shiftness to correspond to the complexity of the structure. Therefore, with the structure containing three stems, instead of having only the modules changing, one of the stems in this network could spin and interact. I found that while it rotates, it actually overlap with another stem. Thus, I looked into the things which allows them to rotate pass through each other.
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One of the factors is the spacing in between the modules. I made observations on the different distances, including 1 step in between ,2,3, and 4 steps. By adding variations of distances to different part of the artifact. Another layer of glitch is added to the structure. So overall the different parts will represent different levels of distortion as it changes.
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The individual modules mimic the properties of a flower which has different stages in their life cycle. I adopt the motion from the, ‘water experiment 2’ as a way each individual module transforms. Thus, the module is made with hydrogel membrane which reacts to water and change.The case holding the hydrogel are made with polyethlene microstructures which provides small gaps for water to move up into the modules. The core is made with aluminum to give support.
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The module reacts to the tide level and changes throughout the day. Finally, since the artifact changes into different conditions endlessly and in loop. It eliminates the idea of neglecting and portrays the idea of re-embracing. To conclud, this artifact exhibits the in between moments of life and death.
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wor k archive jan-may 2022
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