274 NA-Masses

PRICE ON REQUEST (for details, please email collecthk@hkac.org.hk) 

Yuting Xue
NA-Masses (2024)
Interactive Installation; multi-media; 2024

NA-Masses is a multi-sensory interaction artwork that presents a speculative future in which aerosols are preserved, collected and launched from the natural environment in the future. It is based on current science and technology that aims to use man-made aerosols to mitigate global warming, but that has yet to succeed.

With global warming on the rise, experts argued that the next most promising is getting aerosols into the stratosphere to compensate for the increase in greenhouse gases. There are two types of aerosols in the world. One is man-made aerosols, mostly produced from human activities that are harmful to the environment. The other is natural aerosols, which can be found in every ecosystem. They reflect radiation and cool the atmosphere without pollution. Currently, natural aerosols is difficult to be collected and launched. However, some researches show that the aerosols are regularly manipulated by acoustic tunable phase-control at a resonant frequency 2.6427 kHz and they can retain their parabolic shape under the resonant vibrations at 90.3 Hz for 1.1 sec. Some new transparent coating material can capture aerosol droplets from the air and use high-altitude balloons to lift them into the stratosphere. Based on the above studies, NA-Masses speculate that in the future, natural aerosols can be collected by 'RC-Aerosols' technology, which can filter out the anthropogenic aerosols and trap the natural aerosols with coatings by the resonant frequency at 1030Hz. Ultimately, the collected natural aerosol masses are injected into the stratosphere using the 'Mix-hydrogen' method.

The installation consists of one projector for audio-visual interactive moving images, one potentiometer for adjusting sound frequency and two air pumps with the balloon for inflation and pumping. This project has three stages: preparing, collecting, and launching. During the preparation period, when audiences rotate the potentiometer, they can control the sound frequency from 20 Hz to 1030 Hz; when up to the peak value of 1030 Hz, the collection will be triggered. At that time, the 'Mix-hydrogen' will be injected into the physical balloon installation and work together with the projector to create a shadow that corresponds to the process of collecting natural aerosols in the movie. After a few seconds, 'NA-Masses' will be launched and released into the stratosphere, brightening the clouds and cooling the earth.

Artist statement

Yuting Xue is an interactive artist and designer with a background in Digital Media Art. She holds the Master degree from the Royal College of Art (RCA) in Information Experience Design and is currently pursuing a PhD at the City University of Hong Kong (CityU). Her work is based on immersive moving images and interactive installations which involve multi-sensory interactive experience, trying to break through the limitations by traditional visual models. She explores the infinite possibilities of human perception to evoke human emotional resonance from different senses. She often uses speculative design and design fiction to critique the relationship between humans, post-humans and environmental space.