Qinglian Guo: A Digital Window for Watching Snow Scenes
Artist(s):
Collaborators:
Title:
- A Digital Window for Watching Snow Scenes
Exhibition:
Creation Year:
- 2007
Category:
Artist Statement:
This work was inspired by the traditional Japanese Yukimi Syoji screen commonly used in rural houses. Yukimi means watching a snow scene, and Syoji means paper door. On a Yukimi Syoji, paper is replaced by transparent glass so people can view snow scenes. I am deeply impressed with this enjoyable way of spending time. When I started producing this installation, the first thing I did was make a covering box like a Yukimi Shoji to hide computer devices. Next, I created three types of snow scenes by programming with OpenGL and C++. I created snowflakes in four-dimensional hexagons, letting them move and rotate in four-dimensional space, and projected the snow scene to three-dimensions. Second, I created a scene of snowflakes in the form of alphabets. I set a slow falling speed so that people could read the alphabets and even solve a word puzzle. Third, I made a snow scene in which everything (for example, snowflakes, trees, and houses) was shown in wireframe. These floating wireframe snowflakes present a novel and particular sense. In addition, I created a virtual cloudy glass and put it in front of the snow scene. When people touch the panel and move their fingers, a transparent stroke appears on the virtual glass. Through the stroke, people can see the falling snowflakes. With time, the stroke disappears, and the glass becomes cloudy again.
Technical Information:
A series of 3D animations of snow scenes was created based on an original design by programming and coding with Open3D and C++. Snowflakes can be formed in alphabets, polyhedrons, or four-dimensional hexagons. All of them are 3D modeled, based on calculated
coordinates, and composed of semi-transparent polygons. Snowflake movement is controllable through parameters such as falling speed, floating vectors, and rotations.
