In WHYIXD's Tender Soul of Ocean, the boundary between human, nature, and technology dissolves into a shared sensory field. More than representing nature or offering an immersive experience, the work acts as an interface—a dynamic system where environmental data, light, and movement unfold into what could be called a poetics of perceptual extension. At the same time, it serves as a memory structure that continuously evolves through the interplay of human presence and natural forces. Nature is not simulated here; it is translated into bodily perception, shaped through rhythm, temporality, and atmosphere.
The project began in Keelung, Taiwan, as a response to the city's maritime culture and the perceived distance between people and the sea. Real-time wind data from the harbor was translated into flowing light patterns, creating an immersive corridor where visitors could step into a living stream of environmental information. This early installation was not simply a display but a perceptual alignment tool, allowing the human body to reattune itself to natural systems. In this convergence of data and movement, memory began to take form.
The presentation of Tender Soul of Ocean: A Marine Climate Preservation Initiative at the 7th Time Space Existence Architecture Biennale marked a turning point for the project. The installation captured real-time wind from the Venetian lagoon and transformed it into continuously shifting light rhythms. By combining an immersive spatial experience with environmental data recording, it articulated the dynamic relationship between marine ecosystems and atmospheric change. This edition also introduced a global outlook: a vision for a distributed network of installations along endangered coastlines, each site recording and responding to its local oceanic rhythm. To reflect the intimacy of Venice's narrow canals and intensify viewer immersion, the work was configured as a 120-centimeter cube placed in a narrow, pitch-black room. Visitors moved through the corridor as if wading knee-deep in water, surrounded by pulses of light echoing the breath of the sea. A three-sided mirror system created a sense of infinite extension, allowing the light field to dissolve the physical boundary of the space and envelop the viewer completely.
In parallel, the project also introduced a compact capsule version of Tender Soul of Ocean, designed to preserve and replay environmental data across both time and geography. These modular memory devices are not limited to past recordings; they are also capable of storing data from future installations. They are more than archival tools. As light-based carriers of atmospheric rhythm, they allow distant ecological sensations to resurface and resonate within new spatial contexts.
This spatial relationship between body, data, and environment is not simply aesthetic. It reconfigures the act of perception, extending it outward and collapsing the divide between subject and object. In doing so, Tender Soul of Ocean reflects a contemporary ecological sensibility that moves beyond the human-centered gaze. It invites a more entangled, attentive relationship with the nonhuman world. The most recent version of the work expands this entanglement further. In collaboration with sound art collective Kling Klang Klong, the installation now includes speculative wind models, spatialized soundscapes, and movement sensors. These elements turn visitors into co-creators of the environment, drawing them more deeply into the system’s rhythm and flow. The work becomes increasingly participatory, sustaining its core function as a living interface.
Memory in Tender Soul of Ocean is never fixed. Whether derived from Keelung's harbor winds, Venice's lagoon air, or projected future climates, data is always reshaped—translated into light, sound, and motion. What endures is not an exact record, but an unfolding act of remembrance that remains open to change. Across all its iterations, Tender Soul of Ocean offers a quiet yet profound insight: the world is not a static object, but a dynamic field continuously co-constructed by human and nonhuman presences—fluid and shared.
TIME SPACE EXISTENCE
Dates
From 10 May to
23 November 2025
Venues
Palazzo Bembo 2nd Floor, G room
Information
Open from 10 May to 23 November 2025
Open everyday from 10 to 18, closed Tuesdays
Free Entry