Life in a Nutshell

When something is in a nutshell, it’s just a big idea in a very small place. A very quick way to express a lot.

This project is a story, a song about human from 4000 years ago to today in nutshell through the origins of language.

PROCESS

 Life in a Nutshell I

CONCEPT

<Life in a Nutshell I> is the first volume of <Life in a Nutshell>, 13 sculptures of human beings. In the first volume, language becomes human.
What does it mean as a human being?

3600 years ago, in Shang dynasty, ancient Chinese people asked deities and the unknown sky to answer their questions about life by carving their questions onto the tortoise shells using a sharp tool in a language known as oracle bone script today. These characters are formed as pictograms and are considered as the first fully functional and mature Chinese characters in Chinese written language system. As the memory ancient Chinese people leaving behind in the world, these characters portray how ancient Chinese people see the world, the nature, the life and ourselves and hold Chinese culture and philosophy.

3600 years after Shang Dynasty, Chinese characters change along the long evolution of history. However, not many people today, even Chinese, know how the oracle bones, the original Chinese characters, look like and how they were formed originally as a pictogram.

So I picked 12 essential words that describe the life of human in a cycle based on Chinese philosophy. From birth, to sky, questioning the relationship between human and nature, to growing up in home, to dreaming up, to departing, to finding love, to tasting sadness and happiness, to returning，to hometown and to become aged day and day,  and finally come to death as a cycle.

I searched the meanings of them and based on the findings from scholars and my design, the character for human being is in each of this character. Some of them have two human beings.

I created all the models by myself in Maya.

3D printed them.

Cut, paint and stain the wood.

SCULPTURES

CONCEPT

In every stage of life, the human being is in there. The human is in there expressing their feelings, their life in a nutshell.

I was really fascinated by the human character in the sculpture and wondered their stories behind each poses.

There is a human character in each of these Chinese language characters. Is it possible to invite human to play the role of human being in each of this character, to embody the pictogram.

<Life in a Nutshell II> is the second volume of <Life in a Nutshell>, an interactive installation that invites viewers to become part of the character to experience the life cycle. In the second volume, human becomes language.

The viewer will become one of the character. Another character will be a virtual character in the story, as families, as lovers, as friends in the experience to guide and accompany the viewer.

PROCESS

Then I categorized 12 skeleton data viewers will do and then used machine learning to train these 12 different poses. The poses and characters are paired with each other.  

STORYTELLING

Each story is a stage of life. The Chinese character is gradually formed while the viewer becomes a character in the story.