Collaboration with Eunseong Park
Project Overview
Liquid Mind is an installation where a robotic hand is controlled by the sound of local waters. We aimed to create a nonbinary machine—a “water computer”that challenges the binary processing typical of digital systems. We explored the idea that computation doesn't have to be binary. This installation mirrors how we think in binary terms like on/off or yes/no. We often feel the need to classify and define the world in binary ways, and in the process, we reinforce existing frameworks that limit our understanding.
Liquid Mind challenges our perception by emphasizing that reality is not binary but a spectrum of possibilities. By mirroring the complexity of the real world, our project encourages moving beyond simple classifications and embraces the patterns of nature, reminding us of our shared existence
Context
We have excerpted James Bridle's "Ways of Being" as a contextual framework for the Liquid Mind project. In his book, Bridle mentions a computer that is a bucket of water.
The water in the bucket isn’t ‘thinking’ or ‘remembering’ but it is processing. It’s computing information. The form of this information isn’t like the ones or zeros that pass through digital machines (including the crab computer): it’s analogue, which rather than old or fuzzy means complex, knotty, and continuous. It has texture and color, like the world. We can’t read water in the same way as we can read data, and this is a good thing. Working with it makes us more aware of the distance between ourselves and the matter under consider ation. It reminds us that we share this world rather than own it. Knowledge produced through the medium of the shifting surface of a bucket of water is made in cooperation with the world, rather than by conquering it.
- James Bridle
Similar to the bucket of water, our installations suggest that people can work together with the water, instead of trying to control it. This encourages us to evaluate the way we interact with the world.
Tech Support TouchDesigner:
Helin Ulas
Exhibited:
ZKM Pavillion (2024)
Art Karlsruhe - Academy Square (2025)