I TOLD YOU, I LOVE YOU

This project, “I told you, I love you”, combines my imagination of the octet rule with wet plate to explore the relationship between visible and invisible.

I am very fascinated by the smallest unit that constitutes the universe, atoms. Every atom is composed of a positive nucleus and negative electrons bound to the nucleus. The positive attracts the negative to form an atom, and electrons go randomly in the orbital area. However, it tends to have eight electrons in its valence shell by losing its original electrons or gaining more from another atom’s to make a stable structure of the ion, which is the so-called “octet rule.” Different ions with electrical charges react with each other and construct diverse compounds.

In series of reactions between stability and instability, I find my association with the octet rule. The establishment of relationships with people is similar to the octet rule. People as atoms, our flow of emotions and desires as electrons. In order to connect with others, we abandon, take over, and share our original electrons with others. By transforming ourselves, we hope to get something back in alchemical ways. During this process, we can be stable, unsteady, or in between, and there is endless possibility.

By applying electricity on wet plate, I give silver nitrate energy to convert and leave their trace. I destroy and reproduce my images with electric current, trying to capture my conflicting individuality- the inner conflict from building relationships with others. The electric current left on my body also represents emotional responses at the time. Whether it is chaotic, calm, or fearful, it shows my psychological states of different stages in relationships. It reveals the contingency of blending and colliding. Some part of it breaks apart, and some part of it finds the way to stay. In this ritual, I try to discover and explore my inner self.

In old alchemy, alchemists believed physically they could transform lead into gold and silver. On the spiritual level, lead symbolizes dirt in our spiritual consciousness and gold is the higher perceptual pattern. In 1944, psychologist, Carl Gustav Jung, also related alchemy with the individuality of the psyche. He believed while alchemists operating, they were in the process of merging their old identity into a purer, and stabler one, which reminds us of that alchemy combines philosophy and experimental science to create a view of cosmos. According to Jung, all these experiences remain as “collective unconsciousness.”

Nowadays, we know more than old alchemists about how to utilize chemicals, but the rationality and causality behind modern science are prioritized. Although scientists still could’t thoroughly explain the reason why the world works this way, the octet rule or the whole universe, through observation and experiences they sum them up into rules. Despite the fact that human kind successfully discovered how to unlock the mystery of atoms to make energy and even make nuclear weapons, I am convinced that there is more than what’s inside the atom. Like old alchemy, not only in substance but also in consciousness, we all have dissolutions and solidifications.

For me, an atom consists of its own individual universe, so do our souls. Every small piece completes the whole. No one really knows what happens inside an atom. However, under this mysteriously enormous cosmos, I believe in a ‘quantum’ world where we share the same foundation of vibration and subconsciousness. In this project, I focus on the spiritual aspect of atoms and my mental states. The unpredictability of electric current is a reflection of the possibility.

SHARON HO

I TOLD YOU, I LOVE YOU