Traceless

Xuedan Gao; Xinchen Liu

Traceless
Image credit: Xuedan Gao; Xinchen Liu

Abstract:

The Anthropocene, a time defined by human impact since the 1950s, has led to significant environmental changes, often tied to the Earth’s declining health. Glacial ice, formed over centuries through the compression of snow into dense, airless layers, symbolizes the vast, slow forces of nature. However, this balance has been disrupted in the past two centuries. Human activities such as fossil fuel combustion, deforestation, urbanization, and industrialization have accelerated glacier melting, contributing to global warming and altering Earth’s ecosystems. The contrast between glaciers’ slow formation and rapid retreat shows the profound impact of human activities on natural processes.

Traceless is an interactive sound installation with visual projections that invites participants to use handheld controllers for audio and tactile interaction. Ice, a symbol of power in deep time and fragility in the Anthropocene, serves as both medium and collaborator in this work. Traceless includes the installation’s core structure, an interactive audio system, and visual projections. It captures the sounds of ice melting and dripping using contact microphones. The visual projections compare two timescales: the slow, natural progression of glacial formation and the rapid, human-accelerated retreat occurring today. We created animations of various forms of snowflakes combined with the rhythmic sound of dripping water to metaphorically represent the time spectrum of the various stages of glacier formation. To illustrate the impact of human activity on glacier melting, we utilized AI-driven videos generated through Stable Diffusion, along with the Greenland Surface Melt Extent dataset from the NSIDC (National Snow and Ice Data Center). The two visual effects were switched through tactile interactions, bringing different times into the same space.

The interaction emphasizes the harmony between human actions and natural processes. When participants hold the controller, the corresponding musical note will play. When participants speak to the installation, their voices blend with the natural sounds of melting ice, which forms an echo that embraces change as part of the natural system. Human language is not parsed semantically and becomes increasingly blurred in the echo. This is a call-and-response process, where the ice and the system actively respond to the participants in their own rhythm that is not influenced by the participants, forming a mutual dialogue. The sounds metaphorically embed the vibrational frequencies of carbon-based life into the ancient resonance systems of geological formations. The sounds across material dimensions constitute dialogues between geological time and the Anthropocene.

Traceless allows participants to experience and reflect on the agency of nature within a restricted dialogic framework. The asymmetric interaction exposes the boundaries of human intervention and guides participants to realize, through attempted ‘collaboration’ with the installation, that symbiosis resides not in technological domination, but in what Donna Haraway calls ‘becoming with’, an ongoing process of co-creation rather than control. By immersing participants in the multisensory experience, Traceless encourages them to think about the active role of nonhuman entities and to imagine a de-anthropocentric future.