Living Mandala
- Jing Zhou
The project
“Living Mandala” is an exploration into uncharted territories of the human soul sculpted by our present time. This interactive revolving graphical system visualizes our perceptions of life (microcosm) and the universe (macrocosm), our connections to ancient mythology, cosmology, and cultural heritage, and the relationships among humankind, science, technology, and nature in a globalized society. Merging rich historical, cultural, and scientific imagery and symbols with real-time data and sound, this living organism alters every moment responding to the movement, light, sound, and temperature of its surroundings. Built with Processing, an open source programming language and environment including real time data and scientific imagery, this project consists of three layers with complex graphics and symbols: 36 ancient mandalas and cosmological circular imagery collected from 16 cultures, 15 graphics representing human studies and perceptions of the world and the universe, and nine nature icons.
The artist
Born in China, Jing Zhou is an interdisciplinary artist, designer, and professor in USA. Her work has been shown and collected internationally including: Triennale Design Museum, Milan; Asian Cultural Center, Manhattan; British Computer Society, London; SIGGRAPH Art Gallery; ISEA; CAA; Les Abattoirs Museum, France; Mons Memorial Museum, Belgium; Royal Institution of Australia; New York Hall of Science; Danish Poster Museum; GAMeC Modern and Contemporary Art Gallery, Italy; Athens Digital Art Festival, Greece; Taksim Republic Art Gallery, Istanbul; FILE, Sao Paulo; Korea Visual Information Design Assn.; Goethe Institute Alexandria, Egypt; Hungarian Electrographic Art Assn., Budapest; Stanford University; public collection of the WRO Media Art Center, Poland; Waikato Museum, New Zealand; Moravian Gallery in Brno, Czech Republic; SDAI Museum of the Living Artist, San Diego; and Chinese Culture Center of San Francisco. Jing is also a Gold Medal recipient of the Art Directors Club of New Jersey, Gold Winner of the American Design Awards, Silver Winner of the Summit International Creative Awards, and Prize Winner of IFUW Poster Competition in Geneva. Jing’s multimedia artwork explores our common humanity and reflects her interest in spiritual experiences, Eastern and Western art, literature, and philosophy. Creating art is a process of deciphering her life journey.