For Dry Sea, Sabine Kacunko took microscopic photographs of fungal cultures from the Gobi Desert. These image data became the resource for the interactive environment, in which the microcosm of the desert patina was projected onto a screen and was to be seen across the entire screen area as the exhibition opened. The more visitors entered the space, the more the image on the screen fragmented, until it was no longer visible. The connections and thought-provoking impulses borne in the work reflect the sensitive ecological and economical equilibrium the world finds itself in, and which need to be preserved, or as the case may be, restored. Project was supported by State Chancellery Berlin, Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing, Berlin (BAM), University of Applied Sciences Potsdam, Charitié Berlin, Nikon Deutschland and Panasonic Deutschland.
At the foreground of the piece stood the efforts to a synthesis of economic growth and environmental protection as a challenge for the 21st century. In many countries of the world, man is the witness of at least partly self-caused desertification, which is greatly accelerated by the destruction of the desert patina. The patina represents chemical weathering processes and is also known as desert varnish. It holds not only the desert sand together (by surface sealing) but also feeds other ecosystems such as rainforests. This happens while the microorganisms are transported through the air. The expansion of the Gobi Desert and the efforts to limit it through protective plantations (project “China Green Wall”) reflects a process that is about to become a part of global consciousness.
The focus of the interactive piece is the artistic attempt to draw attention to the issue of desertification. Desert patina (fungi and lichens) from the Gobi Desert, were settled on a medium (agar) and cultured in the Berlin Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing (BAM) by Prof. Anna Gorbushina. Using a photo microscope, digital image data from the desert patina were created and selected by the artist, to be used as raw material for interactive installation. In a rear projection screen of 220 x 600cm, the microcosm of the desert patina is made visible due to its proportions in the gallery space. Via a touch screen, visitors can get more information on the subject. A desert landscape is created in the urban space: Upon arrival, the first visitor still can see a grayish and black appearing desert patina on both sides on the projecting surface. However, the more people enter the room, the more the patina forms back, so that ”the images of patina” vanish progressively. The visitor is registered by a camera as it moves ‘behind’ the screen. This information is passed on to a computer while software created especially for this installation produces the effect described. The software was programmed in collaboration with the students Lino Teuteberg and Christoph Steinlehner from the University of Applied Sciences (FH) Potsdam (interface design).
Comment
Not only does the currently widely discussed system ‘environment’, often reduced to temperature affected changes, become an artistic subject. But also the system ‘material’, the microbial biofilm and the intercontinental migration of bacteria by means of desert dust come to the fore. Sabine Kacunko explains the issue of the desertification by using the example of the expansion of the Gobi Desert and China’s efforts to stop this tendency with the project ‘China’s green wall’. For the interactive installation SAY(IL)ING – HAN HAI(Dry Sea), presented in Beijing in October 2009, microscopic image files of cultures of fungi from the Gobi Desert were produced. The microcosm of the cultures of fungi from the ‘desert patina’ grown by Anna Gorbuschina (BAM Berlin) was projected onto a screen, but the more exhibition visitors that entered the room, the more the patina image faded away, the less the pristine ecological and aesthetic balance persisted.
The Gobi Desert in Central Asia is one of the biggest deserts of the world. It covers more than 1 million square kilometres. From West to East, it spans over a length of 2.000 kilometres, from North to South it is up to 800 kilometres wide. In no other region of the world live as few people as in the Gobi Desert. In China, people call this region “han-hai” which means dry sea. Artist Sabine Kacunko took this poetic name as title for her new work which she specially developed for Platform China in Beijing. In her multilayer spatial installation, the artist touches central sociopolitical and environmental questions and leads directly into existential considerations about the relationship between humans and nature which today is characterized by an increasing tension.
Desertification
For decades now, desertification – not only in China – has been a major environmental problem. In Africa around 40 % of the population live in regions which are in danger of desertification, in Asia it’s 39 %, in South America 30 %. Each year, many raging sandstorms roll in over China. Millions of tons of dry soil get catapulted into the air, winds carry them from Inner Mongolia and Northwest China into other regions at a speed of up to 100 kilometres per hour. Of course, there were always sandstorms in China, but only nowadays the consequences of desertification in the 20st century and later allow the wind to take large quantities of the loosened grounds and thus to leave a growing desert. Year by year, China loses around 2500 square kilometres to the deserts. The living space of 100 million Chinese is under threat.
Green Wall of China
In 1978, China initiated the so-called Green Wall-project, officially called The Three-North Shelterbelt Development Program. The Green Wall is considered to be the greatest reforestation project in the history of humanity. It seeks to work against the expansion of the deserts by afforesting. So far, the People’s Republic has spent more than 3 billion dollars, around 24 million hectares of forest were already planted. More than 4 million square kilometres of trees which are particularly inured to dryness shall be planted until the year 2050. The North Chinese woodland is expected to triplicate by then. The Great Wall used to provide protection from the peoples from the North, today the Green Wall ought to protect China’s population from the sandstorms and desertification.
Among international experts it is being discussed whether the planting of trees is everywhere the best method to overcome desertification or not. Alternatives are the erection of low barriers to retain water or the use of economical ovens. Sabine Kacunko, who has been dealing with chemical and visual attributes of patina for some time now, has analysed the phenomenon of desert varnish, which possibly provides another solution for the problem of desertification, together with German microbiologists.
Dry Sea
Sabine Kacunko has used patina already in earlier works: A sample of patina from a selected object is placed under a video microscope. Projectors connected up to the microscope transmit the images in real-time back onto the surface of the object where the patina was taken from. The light functions as a binder between the different layers of time, material and content – thus past, present and future are being merged. For „Dry Sea“ Sabine Kacunko created image files of the desert varnish using a microscope. These images files are the source material for the interactive spatial installation “Dry Sea”.
The microcosm of desert varnish is rear projected on a screen whose proportions in the exhibition space remind of a billboard. In the beginning of the performance of “Dry Sea” the greyish desert varnish is visible as „all-over“ on the screen. A camera records all visitors as long as they move behind the projection wall. This information is forwarded to a computer on which the images of the desert varnish are saved. The image files are controlled by a software which was specially developed for this installation. The more people enter the room, the more fragmented the image on the screen gets, the patina regresses, until it, resp. its image, has completely disappeared.
The references that are provided by this sophisticated artistic set-up are numerous; relations and perceptible tensions evolve between the natural phenomenon of patina and the advanced technology of the software-controlled installation, between the viewers and the space, biological processes and human interaction as well as between past and present and, after all, between art and science. These associations and thought-provoking impulses, as regards both to form and content, reflect the sensitive ecological and economic balance which holds the world we live in, and which is to maintain resp. to rebuild. Its centre are, actively and passively, the humans themselves who often are not fully aware of the consequences of their acting. With her visually impressive interactive installation “Dry Sea” Sabine Kacunko does not only visualize the mystic beauty of natural processes but also the efficacy of human actions.
(Barbara J. Scheuermann)
The project was curated by the artist and curator Yuan Shun, who lives in Berlin and Beijing. The project was supported and developed by: Prof. Dr. rer. nat. habil. Anna Gorbushin (Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing/ Berlin), Prof. Emeritus Dr. Wolfgang Krumbein (Carl-von-Ossietzky-Universität Oldenburg, Geomicrobiology), Charité Berlin, Nikon Germany, Panasonic Germany, The mayor of Berlin, Chancellery of the Berlin Senate, Cultural Affairs.
