Building on the visual effects developed in TouchDesigner, I created projection videos for both sides of the exhibition room. Our goal was to let the audience feel the tidal force—an abstract, subtle sensation. Water, as the core element of tides, became the central visual motif. It represents life, flow, rationality, and emotion.
I sourced video footage from Pixabay, focusing on different forms of water: waves, still water, flowing streams, and surging tides. We also considered time as another essential aspect of the tide. For us, time was a conceptual extension—water becomes a metaphor for time: always moving forward, continuous, and intangible. I collected video materials symbolizing time, weaving them into the narrative of the piece.
The video transitions from the tangible water to the abstract time and tidal force. Looking through the whole video, rippling waves gradually flow into eyes which is the “window” of the human mind, where the sensation of force peaks, every feeling burst into mind. And finally, everything quiets down into the rhythmic motion of a ticking clock. I also included an excerpt from Virginia Woolf’s The Waves, adding a poetic, literary thread that connects the physical and emotional qualities of the tide.
