Everything Before, Everything After

FILE 2024 | Installations
International Electronic Language Festival
Seph Li – Everything Before, Everything After – China and UK

A digital installation features a winding river in the style of Chinese painting, symbolizing time and transition. Touch screens allow visitors to paint over it, altering its course unpredictably. The river embodies history and the future, with each trace contributing to its eternal flow through space and time. Recorded interactions ensure its perpetual existence.

Bio

Born in Beijing in 1988, Seph Li has a mixed background in technology and design, and his keen interest in interactive artworks led him to the field of media arts. Seph studied computer science and entertainment design at Tsinghua University and continued his master’s study in design/media arts at UCLA. Seph currently resides in London, United Kingdom; he creates interactive artworks as well as technical experiments with other production studios.

COIL
The COIL installation is a space for reflection and a feeling of connection between people. COIL resembles a teleport and with this meaning it carries the phenomenon of teleportation. It is something impossible, but the consequences of escaping into it are instantaneous movement and farewell to eternal time. Any venue with art or raves is already an attempt to escape. So COIL pulls the viewer out of chronos and opens access to the eternal.

بوب ويلسون
鲍伯·威尔逊
בוב וילסון
ロバート·ウィルソン
밥 윌슨
БОБ УИЛСОН
Arvo Pärt
Adam’s Passion
Estonian Arvo Pärt is one of the three most performed contemporary composers worldwide. His music has been described as contemplative, sacred, and timeless. “Time for us is the time of our own lives. It is temporary. What is timeless is the time of eternal life. Like the sun, we cannot look at these two directly, but my intuition tells me that the human soul is connected to both of them—time and eternity,” says Pärt. Much like Robert Wilson’s own universe, where time and space are the basic architecture of everything, it is as if these two artists have been waiting to collaborate with one another! ADAM’S PASSION will be a journey into the worlds of sound, light, visual art and performance. It will celebrate Arvo Pärt’s 80th birthday—all in a spectacular venue, the Noblessner Foundry, a vast, old industrial building by Tallinn’s harbo

Prometheus Bound
In Greek Mythology, Prometheus stole fire (technology) from Zeus and gave it to humans, and for this, he got crucified on a mountaintop, and had to endure the eternal pain as a punishment. Since the beginning of our civilization, technology has been the source of prosperity and development. But also it has been the cause of great tragedies such as war sand nuclear accidents. Setting the Aeschylus Greek tragedy “Prometheus Bound” as a starting point, Koizumi created VR (Virtual Reality) theater which deals with this age-old tension between humanity and technology, through collaboration with a person who is desperately longing for the technological advancement – a person who is suffering from ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis- the deadly neurological disease that make a person paralyzed). Through the dialogues with the man about his personal life and his visions of the future, they created a sci-fi vision in which past and future, self and others, humans and machines are all merged into one sequence of abstract VR theatrical experience.

The Roe’s Room
opera movie
In this “absolutely singular autobiographical film opera” (Time Out London), multi-talented composer, writer, director and artist Lech Majewski presents a stunning, intimate, and ultimately magical work of unbridled creativity. A ravishing ode to the imagination, THE ROE’S ROOM is a place where the energy of youth and the eternal power of the natural world triumph over the banalities and deprivations of the commonplace.Within their apartment, a father, mother and son bear the dulling yoke of an ordinary urban life. His mind and heart borne aloft by the cycle of the seasons and the images and music within him, the son transforms his cloistered existence into a richly poetic emotional utopia. As autumn arrives, cracking flakes of plaster become falling leaves. With spring, a cold hard floor comes alive with meadow grass and love beckons in the form of a beautiful young girl’s outstretched hand.

Supernova
Supernova is an experimental 4K art film directed and designed by Maxim Zhestkov and made in Zhestkov. Studio Everything around and inside us was conceived in a huge explosion of a star billions of years ago… and, probably, recycled from other matrices myriad times. In this eternal carousel of matter, particles gather, form complicated structures and then burst into all directions fusing atoms together and producing new elements and points of view, new colours and patterns of perception.

Synchrometrics

Can we design future memories for the body?
Is the body itself the apparatus for remembering cultural processes?Prospectus For a Future Body proposes new perspectives on how the body remembers and invents technological narratives. Central to the project is the study of body movement in dance: How it can evolve, adapt or re-condition to possible futures?Eternal Summer Storm explores the concept of muscle memory transfer as an alternative form of interactive cultural continuities. This concept prototype speculates on a future digital library of body movements or dance techniques that can be experienced beyond the audio-visual conventions. Eternal Summer Storm attempts to recreate legendary Japanese dancer Tatsumi Hijikata’s Butoh dance choreography and experience in ‘A Summer Storm’ (1973) from archival footages.Bionic Movement Research is a collection of experiments on the process of designing digital muscle memory for the body. Inspired by Luigi Galvani discovery (1780) of animal electricity in the human body, these experiments appropriate the techniques of electrical nerve stimulation to choreograph artificial muscle contraction and body movement.

Drawhearts
Drawhearts eternally repeats the act of steaming up a pane of glass and lining out a heart, slowly fading away each time. A pulley system freely moves the body of the machine across the pane of glass, with its main part consisting of a miniature fog machine to steam up the glass and an articulated drawing arm.

Vanitas Machine

The installation VANITAS MACHINE addresses the desire for eternal life and the potential of life-prolonging measures. Based on a candle which – by means of technical intervention – burns down very slowly, vanitas machine creates a contemporary analogy to the endeavour of prolonging the human lifespan with the help of science and technology.Being one of the classical vanitas symbols, a burning candle recalls the futility of the moment, the transience of human life and the certainty of the end of all existence. But is this end really still inevitable?In the course of the last two centuries, average human life expectancy has increased significantly in the industrialised countries. Moreover, in the context of scientific research the biological causes of ageing are being explored. Numerous theories of aging have already been developed pointing both towards physiological as well as environmental factors.One of the first theories of ageing was the so-called »metabolism theory«, which claims that the lifespan of organisms is reciprocally related to energy turnover and therefore connected to calorie intake, oxygen consumption and heart rate: The higher the metabolic rate, the shorter the lifespan of the organism.

Library
The library is a potent metaphor for knowledge that evokes images of organization, study, research and discovery. Libraries build relationships and connections and act as catalysts or laboratories for creative thoughts. Chun’s project is inspired in part by Jorge Luis Borges’ celebrated text, ‘The Library of Babel’ that compares the library to the universe with the grand idea that it is a repository for all knowledge and every individual truth. The universe is governed by an order that we can perceive only partially yet it evokes ideas of the infinite and the eternal – like matter it is neither created nor destroyed – it just is.

ماریکو موری
森万里子
Мори, Марико
Tom Na H-Iu
Tom Na H-iu is a three-dimensional glass work almost 3 meters in height. It is networked to the Super Kamiokande neutrino observatory operated by the Institute for Cosmic Ray Research, University of Tokyo, enabling it to interact and respond when the observatory captures a neutrino. On detecting a neutrino, such as those emitted by stars in our galaxy as they die in supernova explosions[…] Tom Na H-iu represents a modern standing stone that conveys the death of a star, meanwhile hinting at the birth that follows – as if to suggest to the viewer that our existence is in resonance with the universe. When we view this work that emits peaceful light amidst darkness, we can project ourselves into the darkness and gain a sense that we are standing quietly in the flow of eternal time.

ジャウメ·プレンサ
Жауме Пленса
Crown Fountain

In his public art, Plensa challenged himself to involve the viewer with his art, which led to his conception of the Crown Fountain. His objective was to create a socially relevant, interactive fountain for the 21st century.] Since water is the focus of a fountain, and since Chicago, and especially Millennium Park, is so greatly affected by the nearby waterfront, Plensa sought to create an eternal water work to complement the local natural inspirations

Espejismos
Glenda Leon’s work includes various techniques such as drawings, video art, installations, sculpture and photography. Glenda León encourages the viewer to approach the object from a poetical perspective. This way, she reveals the metaphoric part of everyday life objects and is interested in revealing antagonisms like silence or sound, visibility or invisibility; public or private; and ephemeral or eternal.

computer 1.0
C O M P U T E R 1.0 seeks to function as a historical lens that shows how our relationship to computing technology has always been fraught with juxtaposed promises of utopian and dystonia futures, while the reality consistently finds itself somewhere in between.
This installation reminds it’s onlookers that society has been grappling with a digital existentialism and the question of ‘are we better off?’ since the birth of programming itself. In this way, C O M P U T E R 1 . 0 is the physical display of the eternally uncertain potential of technology.

The Eternal
[Verse 1]
Procession moves on, the shouting is over
Praise to the glory of loved ones now gone
Talking aloud as they sit round their tables
Scattering flowers washed down by the rain
Stood by the gate at the foot of the garden
Watching them pass like clouds in the sky
Try to cry out in the heat of the moment
Possessed by a fury that burns from inside
[Verse 2]
Cry like a child, though these years make me older
With children my time is so wastefully spent
A burden to keep, though their inner communion
Accept like a curse an unlucky deal
Played by the gate at the foot of the garden
My view stretches out from the fence to the wall
No words could explain, no actions determine
Just watching the trees and the leaves as they fall

Lux Aeterna
The text (in Latin) is from the Roman Catholic Requiem Mass: Lux aeterna luceat eis, Domine, cum sanctis tuis in aeternum, quia pius es. Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine; et lux perpetua luceat eis, which means “May everlasting light shine upon them, O Lord, with thy saints in eternity, for thou art merciful. Grant them eternal rest, O Lord, and may everlasting light shine upon them.”

Neotenous dark dwellers
Lygophilia
Lygophilia weaves together mythologies and sciences, history and future, fears and desires, continents, cultures, humans and non-humans. Lygophilia folds and unfolds the stories carried by those fascinating creatures that are the Mexican Axolotl and the Slovene Proteus.
From immortality to regenerative medicine — both animals are, as adults, in a state of “eternal youth” (neoteny) showing extraordinary longevity and regenerative abilities that put them at the centre of ancient myths as well as current cutting-edge scientific researches.

Caten
Created for the Saint Sauveur chapel in Caen, Caten is a levitating sculpture, determined by gravity and guiding the evolution of a sound composition.
300 fine wires suspended from two ropes, connected themselves at each end to a slowly rotating arm, form an evanescent surface which interacts with the architecture. By a symbolic mirror effect, the curves of the wires, created by the gravitational force, reflect the shapes of the church arches. Caten opposes the ephemeral to the eternal, the movement to the static, and produce a tension between the lightness and the millenary stability of the space.

The Eternal Eye

西尔维·弗勒里
실비 플러
סילבי פלרי
シルヴィ·フルーリー
СИЛЬВИ ФЛЕРИ
eternal wow with quartz

Marian Zazeela & The Theatre of Eternal Music
Dream House
The album was released with the catalog number Shandar 83.510. Regarding the extended run time, Young in the sleeve notes says that “Time is so important to the experiencing and understanding of the music in the record that every effort was made to make the record last as much as the original master tapes”; Young thanked Mr. Michel Blancvillain who made it technically possible.The cover, labels, design and calligraphy were designed by Marian Zazeela, and are drawn in her trademark magenta on a black background, featuring a picture of her and Young in performance. The two inner sides of the record jacket contain a comment by Shandar founder Daniel Caux, plus extensive original notes penned by La Monte Young himself about the music, its structure and its history. In 2016 Aguirre Records reissued the album on vinyl in a limited-edition, remastered form

Eternal Om

the encampment of eternal hope

eternal sunsets