Water

Water is a installation captures the beauty and movement of water currents while exploring the human attempt to impose order on these natural patterns through mechanical systems. While observing a stream, the diverse patterns created by flowing water became apparent. Nature seems to move freely without fixed rules or criteria, yet humans constantly attempt to find structure and order within these movements. In particular, the machines and systems created by humans repeatedly attempt to measure, classify, and control the flow of nature.

Based on these reflections, various water currents were recorded on video and used as the foundation of the installation. In the work, videos of real flowing water are projected while a thread continuously moves up and down in front of the image. This movement repeatedly divides and aligns the flowing patterns of water, appearing as if a mechanical system is attempting to organize and smooth the natural chaos.

Through the interaction between the projected video and the moving thread, the work reveals the tension between the organic flow of nature and the mechanical systems created by humans. While nature constantly produces unpredictable and changing patterns, humans repeatedly attempt to measure, categorize, and impose order on these flows. The installation visually exposes the subtle conflict and balance between these two forces.

A series of visualization experiments were conducted to simplify the complex patterns created by flowing water. First, the image was simplified by grouping small pixels into larger pixel units. Next, specific regions of the water were sorted based on brightness values in order to reorganize and simplify the visual pattern. After exploring several approaches, the final visualization adopts a method in which a single representative pixel replaces the remaining pixels within the same column.

To create a horizontal thread that continuously moves up and down, a motor was attached to two parallel aluminum profiles, with the thread fixed at both ends. All control is handled by an Arduino system. The movement of the thread is synchronized in real time with the video of flowing water, allowing the sorting process to be visualized through the alignment between the video image and the physical thread.

Water was exhibited during the 2025 Hochschultage at the University of the Arts Bremen, where it received Third Place in Digital Media. It was later presented at PACE Festival in Potsdam from October 24 to 26, 2025.