Tree Pruning
Siran Sun and Yan Xia
Medium: Digital Art, Digital Storytelling, and Programming (2022)
Issues: Control and Order, Critical World Building, and Grouping
Description
Tree Pruning is a piece of programming for the ordering and forced organization of the masses. It describes a scene of public and community domination, attempted dominion over the public. The computer production confronts the traditional art picture or painting in a provocative way. The music recalls and uses a Western musical scale and uses the musical phrasing to recall feelings of an impending patriotic march of action dooming all agents within a system. The narrative and the overall structure of the work can also offer an alternative simultaneous option of hope. The different cycles of time between nature, human evolution, and society (governmental structure) — as principal organizing force — are in question. When thinking thru the work carefully what is objective truth in a system where personal agency is taken away while knowing that with all things systems, governments, and philosophies can/will change. An ironic contemporary representation of — a hypothetical (digitized) triumph of the people and nature – the relationship between rule and nature computationally modeled to even critique the underlying technological infrastructure that binds the world together– another system of control. There is a firm digital language of animation, representation of agents, and growth of the environment over time. The use of a contemporary understanding of control and land management can also be paired with the music that critiques our current systems of labor and does not acknowledge the true value of a “Natural Ecosystem” and the people that manage complex ecosystems which includes all living creatures in the air, land, and soil. This minimalist gesture is also a critique on Modeling and future casting “Models” of land management and resource “labor” distribution. The techniques combine algorithmic systems, traditional oil painting, and animation to depict slightly a non-narrative absurd expression of natural/cultural/political relations. The work suggests themes related to digital ecologies and labor; with a dose of humor the living environment compels to feel.
Bio
Xia Yan, born in Tongren, Guizhou in 1975. He graduated from Xiamen University in 2012 with a master’s degree in digital media engineering. He currently teaches in the Academy of Fine Arts of Guizhou Normal University, the curator of the Art Museum of Guizhou Normal University, and the founder of the art area and fiber space of Guiyang Chemical Fiber Factory.
Sun Siran, Professor of Animation, Academy of Fine Arts, Guizhou Normal University. Doctor of Visual Image Design, Yeungnam University, South Korea