A digital play on Zoom
The windows of Zoom are transformed into an entity of the digital stage, where the light is on, livestreaming the livestreamings of the chronicle. The camouflage of the auditorium is darkness .
It presents a collection of unrelated fragmented narratives that evolve around the time when the tree that was used to connect the sky and the earth started to sink.
The tree refers to the holy tree, Jianmu as recorded in a classic Chinese text Shan-Hai Ching. The title is a literal interpretation of the Chinese word for sky - 天空. 天 means sky and 空 means empty.
Voice:
Microchip- Reyna Amaya
‘Division’ chant- Donnoya Drake
Granddaughter- Merry
Grandfather- Stephen Knowles
Chinese background chant- Hubin Huang
Assistant 2- Tjaša Cerovsek
Actor- Andrew Hart
Assistant 1- Claudia Reghenzani
Director - Serena Huang
Chatbox:
Proton 5039- Teresa Sumyi Li
Proton 761- Serena Huang
sketchy 🦶note
The windows of Zoom are transformed into an entity of the digital stage, where the light is on, livestreaming the livestreamings of the chronicle. The camouflage of the auditorium is darkness .
It presents a collection of unrelated fragmented narratives that evolve around the time when the tree that was used to connect the sky and the earth started to sink.
and then the sky started to move away from us
oh wait
or is it us moving away from the sky
The tree refers to the holy tree, Jianmu as recorded in a classic Chinese text Shan-Hai Ching. The title is a literal interpretation of the Chinese word for sky - 天空. 天 means sky and 空 means empty.
actually, the exit looks brighter in the dark
Voice:
Microchip- Reyna Amaya
‘Division’ chant- Donnoya Drake
Granddaughter- Merry
Grandfather- Stephen Knowles
Chinese background chant- Hubin Huang
Assistant 2- Tjaša Cerovsek
Actor- Andrew Hart
Assistant 1- Claudia Reghenzani
Director - Serena Huang
Chatbox:
Proton 5039- Teresa Sumyi Li
Proton 761- Serena Huang
sketchy 🦶note
Tunguska event - a massive explosion that still remains a mystery till this day
Babylonokia - a ‘fossil’ of a mobile phone made by artist Karl Weingärtner in 2012. The image was taken by a conspiracy website and described as a mysterious archaeological find. The rumor was then popularized by multi media sources.
Piltdown man - Pieces of skull found in Piltdown that was claimed to be the missing link between apes and humans, but it was later discovered as a hoax, forged by an anthropologist Charles Dawson.
The song in the radio
-The Mountain Spirit- Gong Linna
The lyric of the song was written by poet Qu Yuan during the Warring States Period and adapted into the contemporary score. It tells a story of a mountain spirit, that was waiting for his/her lover in the mountain who never showed up. It is a love poem of a human-spirit/god relationship.
Translated and Annotated by Feng Xin-ming
Lo, there's someone at the mountaintop, wearing fig leaf clothing and dodder vine ribbons.
She has both expressive eyes and a ready smile: “You admire me , Sire, for being so elegant.”
She rides a red leopard and a wildcat follows; she has a cart of magnolia with a flag of miniature olive. She has orchids and wild ginger on; she breaks off a flagrant flower to give to the one she thinks about.
“I live in the bamboo groves and never see the sky; the road was hard and I came late.”
She stands out, all alone, on top of the mountain; clouds billow beneath.
The day darkens and light disappears; the east wind wafts and the gods send rain.
“Waiting for my lord, I am sad and forget returning home. The years will be late soon; what will make me beautiful?"
She picks the Three Flowers in the mountains. The rocks are many and piled; the vines are spread all over.
“I blame you, Sire; I am desolate and I forget returning home. Perhaps you are thinking of me but you don’t have time?”
The person in the mountain is fragrant as the Pollia flowers; she drinks from the spring in the rocks and finds shade under the spruce and pine.
“You are thinking of me, no?” Doubt suddenly arises.
The thunder drums and the rain darkens; the apes go “jiu, jiu” and also cry at night.
The wind goes “sa, sa” and the trees go “xiao, xiao”: "I think of you, Sire; in vain I try to depart from my sorrow."
Protons and Antiprotons
one of the hypothesis of the Tunguska event was the result of the collision between matter and antimatter.
The holy tree Jianmu 建木
As quoted at the beginning of the play, the tree was decribed differently in different chapters of Shan-hai Ching, as well as in a few other historical texts. The prop in the play was made based on a mix of information taken from different descriptions. A general understanding of the tree is that it situates in middle of of the earth and the sky, on top of which sits the sun and hence there is no shadow if you stand underneath the tree. It was documented along with with two other trees, Fusang（扶桑） of which the sun rises from and and Ruomu（若木), where the sun sets behind.
▲ an archaeological find of a bronze sculpture in Sanxingdui that matches the description of Fusang
青 (a character that refers to different color according to different context and period of history)
In a contemporary context, 青 generally refers to green, hence I used green in the translation of the Shan-hai Ching quote “There is a tree with green leaves and a purple trunk...). However, through out the history, the charactor has developed several meanings referring to different colors. It ranges from green to blue, cyan to indigo, and even black in some context. It has been used to describe tree, mineral, grass, sky, hair and mountain.