Neighborhood V (Springtail Jump)

A globular springtail (Dicyrtomina minuta) initiates the rotation of its tail, the furcula, which sits tucked towards its body. The furcula impacts against the liquid substrate, and with force emit a shockwave of the surrounding air particles and disturbance of the water. From the muscular power of its tail, it rotates at an incredible speed and launches itself as a secondary form of locomotion next to its crawl.

This description of a biological fact has captured my imagination. The creature is as small as 3 mm, and is a brief introduction to the kind of world that I wish to explore.

This is also a first attempt to incorporate NCS (Natural Color System) into the color design via an interpretation. The NCS color system is based on the opponent-process theory of color perception, where the primary colors are White, Black, Red/Green, and Blue/Yellow. A color inhibits its opposite, thus too much red is inhibition of green. In this case, the springtail depicted is meant to show its "future" and "past" state. The "future" is interpreted as something bright & harmonious - the "future" is a combination of Blue/Yellow, whereas the "past" is interpreted to be something that has already happened and "worn", thus a combination of Red/Green. The present is a mixture of all these colors.

Most importantly, this is a continuation of "Meta-Naturalism." A prospective art form I've developed in 2019 to provide a specialized artform for animal art. After much deliberation, it could be applied to humans as well. An official statement is underway. The difficulty for introducing this is to convince artists why such an artform should exist today. We are not living in an age of manifestos, and an artform would have to be conscious about the discursive character of art; that is, art is somehow an extension of our language. An artform today should also be aware of the freedom of expression that contemporary artists expect - one which would allow them to freely make decisions. To be sure, "Meta-Naturalism" is definitely not a "mimetic" or "realist" artform, although it would also be inclusive of figures that appear to correlate with our ordinary experiences.

My interpretation of "Meta-Naturalism" is to explore the interaction of matter. The impact of the creature's tail is elevated or given symbolic significance which to our ordinary experiences would appear to be trivial. This is just one way to represent this art form and there are many more unexplored.