MORE AND LESS

Since a couple of years, for the first time in history, more people live in urban than in rural areas. Within the 21st century, more than ten billion people will inhabit the earth. People need more space, animals habitats are being threatened, several species are becoming extinct. How do we deal with this constellation?

Since 1950, the urban world population has risen by over three billion people. The world's population continues to grow from today’s 7.6 billion to an estimated 9.8 billion people in 2050. People are in need of more space, and animals habitats are being threatened. Some animal species have died out and become extinct; such as the European Terrestrial Leech, the Pyrenean Ibex, and the Chinese Freshwater Dolphin. Every day, a three-digit number of species perish. From a European perspective, many animals disappear in remote areas unnoticed. How do people and artists deal with this constellation?

Media art, lyrics, facts about population development and animal extinction are brought together in a unique interdisciplinary project: the recipient is taken on a virtual flight through a metropolis in a playful way, without showing a moral finger. High-rise buildings built of text and images form a three-dimensional book. The recipient flies self-controlled through a transparent architecture, consisting of numbers of population of the United Nations (facts), haikus form the author’s individual viewpoint (poems) and of animal species declared extinct in the 21st century. The project implicitly raises questions without explicitly answering them:

- (how) do people and their reading habits change in the face of the digital revolution?

- what new modes of mediation are made possible by the digital revolution?

- (how) do people and their perception change in the face of urbanization and the growth of the world population?

- how do humans deal with animals? how does man deal with the knowledge that animal species are dying out?

- man is – globally seen – well on the way to reduce hunger, disease and war. Should he take more care of his fellow creatures?

- (how) can one write poetry and create art as an artist when at the same time animal species are dying out every day?


Realization
The VR Mobile App is a 360 degree all-round view and are used for interactive installations. A smartphone or tablet serves as an interface and the mobile app display is projected onto one or more walls in the exhibition space. The animations and sounds follow the movements of the user: the virtual environment rotates when the user rotate the device. The sky appears when the device is moved upwards. By tilting the device downwards, the floor appears. The virtual environment is endless and can be navigated in every direction. The sound is composed for the app and reacts responsive to all these movements and navigation speeds.

Content summary
- The 50 poems by Markus Kirchhofer are exclusively unpublished three-line poems without titles (Japanese haiku, Markus Kirchhofer has been working on this lyrical form for decades). Erin Palombi from Virginia, USA translated the poems into English.

- UN facts on world population and urbanization (Department of Economic and Social Affairs, publications of 2017 and 2014) are reduced to three figures per agglomeration (years 1995 – 2015 – 2035) and country (years 1950 – 2000 – 2050).

- The information on recently declared extinct animal species is provided by the IUCN, the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

The contents are continuously enhanced and further developed in order to keep the project up to date and lively.


CREDITS
Marc Lee, Markus Kirchhofer and Shervin Saremi (Sound)


SUPPORTED BY
- Pro Helvetia
- Kanton Zürich, Fachstelle Kultur
- Fondazione da Mihi

WEBSITE
https://marclee.io/en/more-and-less/