Ao

Ao is a digital intangible sculpture, an entity and an intertwining of myths.
Ao is the personification of light in Maori mythology, an opponent of the forces of darkness.
Ao is the great sea turtle of Chinese mythology, believed to have lived in the sea at the time of the creation of the world.
Ao is a D&D multiverse overlord who has only taken physical form once.
The light wrapped in the turtle’s form continues its endless swim through time in a spaceless space, a place that is everywhere and nowhere at once.

Ao is a digital sculpture produced using 3D animation and presented as a two-dimensional video projection. The sculpture is textured with different light-reflecting and differently translucent materials, basically built out of light. The materials themselves have no substance other than luminosity and reflective properties. Animation is a cyclical loop that can be repeated seamlessly forever. Ao was presented as a rendered video with a technical duration of about an hour. During this time, the soundscape is played seamlessly. Due to technical requirements, every hour or so the work faded into silence and darkness to start again from the beginning/continue in the same way.

The work was supported by the Arts Promotion Centre.

The premiere of the work was in Turku in autumn 2021.