《东西南北》
· Fortune Tellers ·
Should you follow the instructions and fold the page into the childhood origami game Fortune Teller, known also as “East, West, South, North” in Asian countries, the image at the center would be covered while the four corners would meet and combine into an inner image and an outer image. What is shown in the images before and after the paper is folded follows a chronological order. As the origami gets folded and unfolded, the image changes with it.
This work presents four themes: the universe, coin, rock, and island. We chose those four themes as they are closely related to the built environment in either physical or abstract ways. The images under each theme are seemingly unrelated, yet they represent the same concept manifested during different stages of human development. East, West, South, North, written in Chinese characters, is thus representative of the ecology we share. Through our interaction with the paper, we break down the temporal and spatial boundary between these images and therefore blurring their temporal relationships. In this way, we wish to challenge the temporality of modern vs backward and consider whether a technocentric definition of progress is inherently contradictory or reversible.
