Snowflake on the sand

Emi Kodama and Elias Heuninck encourage you to look at an ordinary object and explore a vast imagined landscape through its miniature world.

Through the lens of a microscope you look at a sand dollar. A sand dollar is a flattened, burrowing species belonging to the order of the sea urchins. This natural sea creature is held in a custom-built manipulator, which is programmed to move the object in such a way that the viewer feels like they are flying over its magnified surface. At first you have a general idea of how that sand dollar looks in its actual size, but no clue how things evolve on a more minuscule level.

© Emi Kodama & Elias Heuninck
© Emi Kodama & Elias Heuninck

Through headphones, a story is read. As you watch and listen, your perceptions change, slowly. And when you stare a little longer, the structured pattern becomes more tangible, more rugged and uneven. Gradually the surface adopts a sandy disguise. Some tiny holes echo footsteps in snow.

The interaction between the unfolding of the unusual landscape and the voice over makes you appreciate the object differently and identify certain aspects which weren’t striking at first. It encourages you to look at an ordinary object and to picture it as something more than the material.

This work navigates effortlessly between a vast imagined landscape and a miniature world, situated between moving image and moving object. It shows that everything can become many things, as long as you allow your imagination to look beyond its current reality.

© Paul McGee - Working Title Festival
© Paul McGee - Working Title Festival
Concept: Elias Heuninck & Emi Kodama — Technical development: Elias Heuninck — Story & voice: Emi Kodama — Thanks to: Hendrik Leper, Marnix Rummens, Formlab (KASK), TOPAZ — Supported by: the Flemish Community, IN/FINITY, workspacebrussels

Past events

Snowflake on the sand

28.06.2019 18:00 - 22:00
29.06.2019 14:00 - 22:00