Abstract

Left To Feel That Wind is an installation that explores the perception of time stretched across both geological and human scales, through the lens of transformation between the Great Salt Lake and Lake Bonneville. The installation features a intricate hand-layered reimagining of Lake Bonneville, spanning 8 x 18 feet, with its primary material: salt, sand, and water. The interpretative landscape fuses topographic and geologic knowledge, changing over time where water meets the salt-scape. The Great Salt Lake, depicted by a computer numerically controlled (CNC) system, captures at its lowest water level in November 2022 as a result of climate change. Water drops slowly and evenly from the CNC system, symbolizing the concept of precise time we humans construct and possess in the Great Acceleration. The water permeates into the landscape of salt and sand, gradually evaporating under the gallery’s climate, leaving a temporal trace signifies human impact on the environment. The ephemeral contour, along with its surrounding pattern of cracks expands an experience from spatial-scale to an awareness of time-scale on site, resonating with the passage of industrial time and deep time. The shifting salt-scape, with its multifold substance, remains unstable within the space, offering a view on the progressive evolution of inert matter and the delicate balance of the Earth. Through a contemplative depiction of the Great Salt Lake’s new shoreline, this project provides a space reflecting on the broader human influence in the Anthropocene era.

Research

In the winter of 2022, I traveled to the Great Salt Lake in Utah, which had receded to a historically low water level. I walk along the shoreside, behold the mountains, the basalt, and the water, which seems at least a mile away. Not far away from the Great Salt Lake, the Bonneville Salt Flats stretched out along I-80. Layers of massive salt crystals have accumulated over time, forming a substantial thickness. Geologically, what today is called the Great Salt Lake is a remnant of Lake Bonneville, a Pleistocene lake that filled and dried over 60,000 years. Its recent decline began 13,000 years at the end of Ice Age, and fell to about the level of modern the Great Salt Lake around 2000 years ago. The salt flats, spanning over 100 miles, are the bed of the ancient Lake Bonneville. The grand time-space melts my mind: how the salt and water meet and separate in countless moments, crystalize and dissolve, forming unique landscapes that display their ethereal beauty; how the earth evolves itself in the immeasurable passage of time and complex interplay, driven by energetic and turbulent processes. The Great Salt Lake had maintained its balance in the past 2000 years, however, it has shrunk over the last five decades, evaporating two-thirds of its volume due to climate change. The Anthropocene’s mark is evident not only in the strata containing artificial materials like plastic but also in a new shoreline of this saline lake.

Technical Details

The CNC water dripping mechanism comprises an ACRO system ordered from OpenBuilds, paired with a custom-designed water pumping system. The system running on G-Code from an open source software. These components are mounted on a plywood base, then suspended from the ceiling using speedrail tubes for secure attachment and optimal functionality.