// new media class


Hibiki Ishijima — In Between

Island of things — Summer 2021

Islands are places with strong characters. It is isolated by water from the others, disconnected from the mainland and the hustle of cities. Because of this, islands tend to be imagined as safe-havens. "Reif für die Insel" is a German idiom that is used when people desire to escape from their current situation and environment. In this case, "island" represents an ideal utopian world, a place of wilderness beyond the reach of civilization.

Every island has its own unique ecosystem under different environmental conditions. When you imagine an island as a biological entity, how does it perceive the water surrounding it, the temperature, and human/animal activities on itself? What the feeling would be if we could experience the immense scaled feeling as if we become the island?

This project "In Between" invites participants to sleep in an installation space on the island - Valentinswerder. In between the states of being awake and sleeping, there is audio and visual stimulation, which is triggered by multiple sensors' inputs coming from various sources across the island. Among those are the water level around the island, the presence of wild animals and humans on the island. Those inputs symbolize the senses of the island itself. The island's senses slip into our subconscious by passively experiencing the sound and light signals.

*This is a collaboration project with Fang Tsai