Quentin Bu
An Elegy for the Departed
Relocation is a constant in life. To escape, to free, to grow, to part, to forget, to recall, is to reorganize and make choices about what to let go of and what to hold on to – to physically leave a place and move far away not knowing if you’ll find a way back. An Elegy for the Departed compiles three pieces of writing throughout different stages of my life. Cloth is an attempt to treasure memories, Bike is an agitation to live as if there is always an end chasing us, and Wind is a brief closure of growing and departing from a past self. This project is my poetic, perhaps futile attempt to consolidate and immortalize these transitory stages of life. The Elegy is also a technological experiment. The typographic images are generated using wearable technology that tracks body movements for virtual reality spaces. The physical body thus connects with the virtual digital metaphor of a body.
Chapter 1 Cloth
“... when I organized my belongings once a week since there were never enough room to save everything. Yet, I will not let that part of me go away and be forgotten, rather I’d hoard it and keep refreshing it in my working memory.”
In this chapter, my hand motion controls the wind directions. The types are attached to strips of fabrics, and they would sway as my hand moves around.
Chapter 2 Bike
“When you scan at the plastic bags at the corner of the room. You know that one day this would be the last time you’d be there. And behind you, the streetlight turned off.”
In this scene, sentences are arranged into wheels. My hand moves and rotates the wheels, which leave a trail of the phrase “so you looked behind you”.
Chapter 3 Wind
“We each see through a kaleidoscope. Aloneness: we never see the same colors, we never see the same colors twice.”
In the final scene, the angle and location of the letters generated are controlled by my hand movements. Wind forces can also be applied according to the direction of my movement to disturb the sprinkled texts.
