Maya's Memorabilia

"When Eutierria occurs: immersing the Swan" is a small scale installation project, consisting of both an audio and a visual. 

On Audio - I am looking to place emphasis the intersection between humanoid and non-humanoid sounds, I want to highlight a difficulty for our human ear to perceive whether a sound is human or animal - here I examine when the human brain is subconsciously searching for this distinction, but it cant find it - and thats the point. Humans are always trying to be separate from animals except we are not non-animals; this piece is about the melt of the human into their surroundings.

In this audio I explore the dialogue between my personal life and the environment that harbors me. This is an extensive conversation in which human personality and natural surrounding become engaged with one another; their symbiosis becomes apparent.

I wish for the audience to hear our interconnectedness, and my hope is that our human earthly connection can immerse them entirely.

I’ve experimented with elements of my own domesticity, all sourced from found audios, and woven them together with recordings of natural non-human noise, to create a sonic blanket for a listener to wrap around themselves and perhaps imagine their own narrative among the fibers.

In the last seconds of the piece audio from a home video plays, a recording of a moment where i as a small child am consuming a bird; an early moment where wildlife granted me the gift of nutrients - it is also an interaction between my mom and I, my mom emphasizes that the bird is “good.” it is not just food, it is a bird. being a baby, and self-centered in that way, i was new very little of the life history behind the bird feeding me, but I was reminded that the bird and I share a world. In reflection, there is overwhelming instance where nature acts as a provider to their human receiver, illustrating a symbiotic relationship. I wish to clarify the nature of this relationship and engage in a conversation that could perhaps be productive in guiding the human mind to desire to interact gratuitously with our provider, and more consciously practice acts of reciprocity in effort to transform the one-sided symbiosis into a grateful mutualism.

On Visual - (ie our swan melting / becoming indistinguishable from background/foreground) Swan is a recognizably beautiful and graceful creature, consistently being used as a metaphor for love and delicacy, and ascension into beauty and grace, all qualities - human projection of their most desirable qualities onto a creature. The swan represents us, as a beautiful animal, melting into a background/ being engulfed by a foreground. The line to differentiate human and non-human other is intentionally left out.
The swan likens in visual similarity to a phoenix becoming fire - a metaphor for ascension from the physical to the elemental. I wanted to project elements and naturalness onto a living creature, and illustrate the creature’s reflections or said projections, to depict the symbiotic nature of the human’s relationship with their environment which sustains them and grants life, in an obscure but beautiful illustration.

This piece is intended to remind my human observer of the interconnectedness of all life on earth; the importance to realize said connection and reciprocate with the animal and plant others, and to remember that we owe them everything that is life: every breath, every bite, every sensation! Our existence is a dialogue and if we give back less than we take, our provider will be diminished beyond repair, harming the both of us irreparably.